Levels 55–57: Media Management

Level 55: ffmpeg Basics

The tool underneath nearly every media server, converter, and streaming pipeline on Linux.

Command	What it does
`ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.mkv`	Convert container format (no re-encode)
`ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn audio.mp3`	Extract just the audio
`ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 output.mp4`	Re-encode with a specific codec and quality
`ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:10 -vframes 1 thumb.jpg`	Grab a single frame at a timestamp
`ffprobe input.mp4`	Inspect codec, resolution, duration, bitrate

Level 56: Media Library Organization

Command	What it does
`find . -iname "*.mkv"`	Find files by pattern, case-insensitive
`sha256sum *.mkv > checksums.sha256`	Generate integrity checksums
`sha256sum -c checksums.sha256`	Verify files against stored checksums
`find . -size +5G`	Find unusually large files
`for f in *.avi; do mv "$f" "${f%.avi}.mp4"; done`	Batch-rename an extension

Level 57: Home Media Server Concepts

Command	What it does
`ls /dev/dri`	Check for Intel Quick Sync hardware transcode support
`nvidia-smi`	Check an NVIDIA GPU’s status and availability
`mkdir -p media/{movies,tv,music}`	Lay out a standard library structure in one command
`df -h /mnt/media`	Confirm free space before a big import
`iotop`	Watch live disk I/O per process during heavy transcoding