diff --git a/doc/examples/decoding_encoding.c b/doc/examples/decoding_encoding.c
index 5271edf34e..3ac701f83a 100644
--- a/doc/examples/decoding_encoding.c
+++ b/doc/examples/decoding_encoding.c
@@ -453,9 +453,6 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
 {
     const char *filename;
 
-    /* must be called before using avcodec lib */
-    avcodec_init();
-
     /* register all the codecs */
     avcodec_register_all();