VapourSynth is intended to be a middle ground you might be seeking. You manipulate the video in Python instead of ffmpeg's CLI, but its often more extensible an

VapourSynth is intended to be a middle ground you might be seeking. You manipulate the video in Python instead of ffmpeg's CLI, but its often more extensible and powerful than pure ffmpeg due to the extensions: https://vsdb.top/ https://vsdb.top/ https://www.vapoursynth.com/ https://www.vapoursynth.com/ I have seen some niche software built on ffmpeg like losslesscut: https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut Staxrip is also big: https://github.com/staxrip/staxrip https://github.com/staxrip/staxrip But I don't know anything "comprehensive."