Considering Developing a Video Converting Tool

[ssam]

did you try Arsta or Transmageddon?

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Now I am here considering writing a Ruby GUI for ffmpeg, but I know close to nothing regarding all the codecs, formats, rates etc. I will need a full listing of all the options, and perhaps examples along with it. Then I can sit and write it. I could even distribute it to people having the same problem.

I recommend distributing a recent ffmpeg (from FFmpeg) binary with the GUI. This way you can only have to deal with one version (not to mention any forks). Otherwise you're going to be spending too much time trying to support everything. Recent ffmpeg builds are already available if you don't want to make it yourself.

Or you can use the FFmpeg API if you prefer (I have no experience with this but see "docs/examples" in the ffmpeg source for a start).