Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser • Hacker News Board

Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#1

Post by bjano » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 1:32 PM UTC

I found that I am using ChatGPT more and more to get the FFmpeg command I need, but the process can be a bit tedious: copy-pasting commands, dealing with input file names and locations, making sure the prompt contains enough info about the input files.

This site attempts to solve that. You just describe what you want to do, pick the input files and an LLM (currently DeepSeek) generates the FFmpeg command. You can then run it directly in your browser or use the command elsewhere.

Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser
vidmix.app

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#2

Post by orderone_ai » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 2:14 AM UTC

This is such a convenient tool for a casual user, and a great application of an LLM to a narrow task that probably couldn't be handled quite so easily everywhere. Also a great example of the emerging 'chat driven' UX trend, which I'm really liking.

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#3

Post by yakattak » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 2:41 AM UTC

Honestly what a great application of LLMs. FFmpeg is a very powerful tool, and as with most powerful tools is very complicated to run correctly. Do the files get uploaded though? Or does it just grab the location on disk?

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#4

Post by danielvaughn » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 2:41 AM UTC

I tried to implement something very similar recently, and had the hardest time getting the LLM to produce anything remotely resembling actual ffmpeg commands.

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#5

Post by cchance » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 2:57 AM UTC

danielvaughn wrote: post #4

I tried to implement something very similar recently, and had the hardest time getting the LLM to produce anything remotely resembling actual ffmpeg commands.

load up the man pages into the context maybe?

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#6

Post by toddmorey » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 3:14 AM UTC

The Warp terminal[1] is excellent for this type of thing. In agent mode, you just describe what you want to have happen and it generates the proper command(s) (that you can approve before running).

I use it a lot to convert videos and turn a folder of tiff files into pngs at 1/2 size, etc. It's great at generating FFMEG commands and chaining the right tools together.

[1] https://www.warp.dev

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#7

Post by ilaksh » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 3:18 AM UTC

danielvaughn wrote: post #4

I tried to implement something very similar recently, and had the hardest time getting the LLM to produce anything remotely resembling actual ffmpeg commands.

You were using a weak LLM then. The difference between one of the leading edge LLMs like Gemini 2.5 Pro, o3, or Claude 4 and an average LLM or one you can run on your typical PC/laptop is night and day.

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#8

Post by 26d0 » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 3:21 AM UTC

yakattak wrote: post #3

Honestly what a great application of LLMs. FFmpeg is a very powerful tool, and as with most powerful tools is very complicated to run correctly. Do the files get uploaded though? Or does it just grab the location on disk?

This appears to use ffmpeg.wasm

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#9

Post by jeanlucas » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 3:49 AM UTC

danielvaughn wrote: post #4

I tried to implement something very similar recently, and had the hardest time getting the LLM to produce anything remotely resembling actual ffmpeg commands.

for real? to me it works fine with just chatGPT (free)

Re: Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser

#10

Post by jjcm » Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 3:57 AM UTC

Great work on this - I made a terminal command similar to this (llmpeg), and was actively trying to get exactly this working - a webasm compiled version of ffmpeg that could encode in the browser. I for the life of me couldn't get the provided examples on https://github.com/ffmpegwasm/ffmpeg.wasm to run.

Just for my own development curiosity, was there anything specific you had to do to get ffmpegwasm to work?