The wiki
The concepts underneath the commands, in plain English. Written for developers who need to make a decision, not pass an exam.
Encoding
How bits become pictures, and how few bits you can get away with.
01 I-frames, P-frames and B-frames The three kinds of frame every video codec uses, why B-frames save so much, and what they cost you in latency and seeking. 02 Hardware vs software encoding Why NVENC is twenty times faster than x264 and still makes bigger files, and how to choose between them. 03 Codec profiles and levels Why a valid H.264 file refuses to play on a TV, and what profile, level and tier actually constrain. 04 Measuring video quality: PSNR, SSIM and VMAF What each quality metric actually measures, why PSNR misleads, and how to use VMAF without fooling yourself. 05 What the browser can do without FFmpeg A capability map of browser-native video processing in 2026: what WebCodecs genuinely replaces, what still needs FFmpeg, and where the line actually sits. 06 Rate control: CRF, CBR, VBR and two-pass The four ways to tell an encoder how many bits to spend, what each one guarantees, and which job each belongs in. 07 Keyframes and GOP size I, P and B frames, what a Group of Pictures is, and why keyframe placement decides how your video seeks, streams and cuts. 08 Understanding CRF: quality-targeted encoding What Constant Rate Factor actually does, why it beats fixed bitrates for files, and what the numbers mean in x264, x265, VP9 and AV1.
Colour
What the numbers in a pixel mean, and the many ways that goes wrong.
01 Bit depth and banding Why 8-bit video bands in skies and gradients, and why encoding in 10-bit helps even when the source and the screen are both 8-bit. 02 HDR video: PQ, HLG and the metadata problem What HDR actually changes in the signal, why HDR content looks grey on SDR screens, and which of the four formats you need. 03 Colour spaces, and why your video looks washed out Rec.709, limited vs full range, and the tagging mistakes that drain the contrast out of an export without touching a pixel. 04 Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2 vs 4:4:4 Why video throws away three quarters of its colour information, why you almost never notice, and when you absolutely do.
Formats
Containers, codecs and the shapes files come in.
01 Transparency in video Which video codecs can carry an alpha channel, why MP4 usually cannot, and the tricks used when it cannot. 02 Aspect ratio, SAR and DAR Why a video plays stretched in one player and correct in another, and what the three aspect ratios in every file actually mean. 03 Audio codecs: AAC, Opus, MP3 and the lossless ones Which audio codec to use for video, for the web and for archives, and what bitrate is actually enough. 04 Choosing an image format: JPEG, WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL What each format is genuinely good at, what browsers really support in 2026, and a delivery decision that survives contact with production. 05 Containers vs codecs: MP4, WebM and MKV Why .mp4 tells you almost nothing about a file, which codec goes in which container, and why changing container is usually free.
Delivery
Getting the finished thing to somebody, at scale and on time.
01 Low-latency live streaming Where the seconds of delay in a live stream actually come from, and what LL-HLS, CMAF and WebRTC each buy you. 02 Subtitles and captions Soft subs, hard subs and burned-in text: which format survives which container, and when to give up and render the words into the pixels. 03 Adaptive bitrate streaming: HLS, DASH and the ladder How one video becomes dozens of files, why keyframe placement decides whether it works, and what HLS and DASH actually differ on now.
Every article links back to the tool it explains, so you can go straight from the concept to a command you can run. New ones go out over RSS and on X.