FFmpeg: The Incredible Technology Behind Video on the Internet | Lex Fridman Podcast #496
May 21, 2026 · 4:18:22
Jean-Baptiste Kempf (VLC lead) and Kieran Kunhya (FFmpeg contributor) trace the evolution of video codecs from H.264 to AV1, revealing how handwritten assembly in projects like Dav1d achieves 62x speedups over C. They recount reverse-engineering GoToMeeting's codec, the 2011 FFmpeg-Libav split, and the burnout crisis in open-source, arguing that security researchers must contribute patches, not just CVEs. The pair also explain VLC's zero-trust parsing, the importance of archival codecs, and why assembly remains essential for real-time video at scale.
