FFplay

FFplay is a basic video player provided with ffmpeg, that can be used for playing media. It’s not a friendly video player, but it is a good testing ground for various things.

To execute it, just simply supply a media file:

ffplay bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_normal.mp4

If you want to test this exact command, you’ll need to get the example files.

For example, it can be used to preview filters (we’ll discuss those later), but let’s see an example:

ffplay -vf "drawtext=text='HELLO THERE':y=h-text_h-10:x=(w/2-text_w/2):fontsize=200:f