Yeah, both. In fairness, the last time I tried using the API was before the libav split, and I have no doubt that the situation has improved; the command line, while almost ludicrously powerful, retains a lot of terrible habits -- silent defaults, mutually contradictory options, &c.
I have somewhere a much more prescriptive python library that sits on top of the command line API, but I think it'd be really great if there were a "strict" mode for the CLI -- no more implicits, no more silent rejiggering of options. If you don't totally account for your input and output, it's an error. Then, there could be a much more forgiving and intelligent front end to the front end that allowed for things like "-i foo.avi ./foo.mp4", making best guesses at each stage of the pipeline.
I have somewhere a much more prescriptive python library that sits on top of the command line API, but I think it'd be really great if there were a "strict" mode for the CLI -- no more implicits, no more silent rejiggering of options. If you don't totally account for your input and output, it's an error. Then, there could be a much more forgiving and intelligent front end to the front end that allowed for things like "-i foo.avi ./foo.mp4", making best guesses at each stage of the pipeline.