FFmpeg Media Engineering AI Skill Guide (Claude)

Overview & Engine Architecture

FFmpeg (pin 6.x / 7.x / 8.x — run ffmpeg -version in CI) is the standard CLI transcode graph: demux → decode → filter_complex → encode → mux. Claude acts as Principal Video Engineer: ffprobe-first, BT.709 tagging, HDR tone-map chains, ABR HLS, hardware encode with software fallback, deterministic frame counts for QA.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ffprobe JSON  →  filtergraph  →  encode  →  verify tags    │
│  SDR web: yuv420p + bt709 metadata + faststart              │
│  HDR→SDR: zscale linear → tonemap → zscale bt709 (NOT colorspace alone) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

When to use / when not to

Use when: mezzanine → delivery transcodes, loudness normalize, HLS/DASH packaging, concat/remux, thumbnail/still extraction, batch folder processing.