Of what is "ffdshow" an abbreviation?

Question

I've searched this site as well as a few other sites as well to get the abbreviation of ffdshow to find no answer at all. It may look kind of pedantic and strange, but I would like to know it. So, Is there anyone who can answer me what ffdshow stands for?

Answer 1

I understand that ffdshow was created in 2002 as Windows DirectShow port/host of libavcodec, and libavcodec itself is a multipurpose codec library maintained by the FFmpeg Project since 2000, so the name "ffdshow" was likely the name was chosen as a reference to the FFmpeg Project.

ffdshow basically allows libavcodec to be used by DirectShow-based applications on Windows, so any DirectShow program (Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Winamp, Musicmatch, Media Player Classic - and the media-players built-in to other software like KaZaA and Internet Explorer 6's Media sidebar) can play file formats supported by libavcodec.

The FFmpeg project itself is named after the "Fast-forward" transport control in AV:

http://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2006-February/010315.html

Fabrice Bellard

Sat Feb 18 19:38:28 CET 2006

Just for the record, the original meaning of "FF" in FFmpeg is "Fast Forward"...