Why I don't (generally) like to use wrapper programs

Most of the comments on my videos and blog are questions about particular workflow issues. However, one of the most repeated questions outside of that has to do with why I don't use/recommend using programs like MeGUI or Hybrid.

The simple answer is that I don't trust that they'll stay around. The history of open source software is littered with wrapper programs that were really convenient for a brief moment in time, until life or lack of interest led to the (usually solitary) developer abandoning the project. Sometimes, someone else will come along and rescue it. More often than not, though, it's just left to rot.

This means that if you base your entire workflow around one of these programs, there's a better-than-average chance that at some point you'll either have to hunt for a replacement that doesn't exist, or learn how to use the programs that underlie the wrapper. After getting burned a few times by this, I have chosen the latter.

Now, this is not to say that I have an inherent prejudice against all wrapper programs. gMKVExtractGUI saves a ton of time and typing when trying to extract audio from an .mkv file, and is directly recommended by the MKVToolNix devs. My main concern is that if you start by learning wrapper programs and don't really understand the fundamental way that the underlying programs work, you'll be lost at sea if something goes wrong.

Nowhere is this more true (in my opinion) than in the case of FFMPEG.

There are a truly massive number of wrappers for FFMPEG. Most are designed to convert consumer video files into a format that works better for media players or phones. Some are free, while quite a few others are scammy $15-$50 converter programs that spam advertisements on places like Quora. A few are actually designed for professional usage, with their primary function being to add ProRes encoding to Windows (which is not as much an issue since Adobe added official ProRes encoding to Creative Cloud video apps).

Now, I want to make a distinction between wrapper programs and programs that merely incorporate FFMPEG. Programs like Handbrake, ShotCut and KDEnlive all use FFMPEG for exporting video, but don't exclusively rely on FFMPEG code to function. They are also projects with a long development history, dedicated teams of people who work on them, and large numbers of users.

Here's the thing, though. FFMPEG goes through significant development, sometimes leading to new features and important bug fixes. Its main ProRes encoder in particular has had major bug fixes within the last year, as I have posted elsewhere on this blog. Most wrapper programs -- and other programs that rely on FFMPEG -- don't update their included version of FFMPEG on a regular basis. In some cases, you might be using a version that's several years out of date. If you learn how to use FFMPEG just by itself, then you can update whenever you want, and potentially troubleshoot issues that the wrapper program hasn't fixed yet.

So, basically, that's my thought process. I completely understand that many people would prefer an all in one solution, especially for programs like AVISynth where the setup process is definitely not trivial. I just tend to gear my tutorials towards a sort of "manual transmission" philosophy because I believe that in the long run it's more helpful.