HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[dannyboy79]

use the kdenlive from the ppa - sanab2 (linked above

you're right, thanks

ok. i had a major brain fart and apparently kdenlive was writing zero size files because my hard drive that kdenlive was trying to save the rendered file to was full. Now I am all good. I ended up with this combination of software.

ffmpeg = medibuntu repo (SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1)
libavcodec-extra-52 and all other ffmpeg libraries (4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1+medibuntu1)
mlt = sanub2 PPA (0.5.7+git20100907.c8b11129-0ubuntu0~sunab~lucid1)
kdenlive = sanub2 PPA (0.7.7.1+svn20100907.r4857-0ubuntu0~sunab~lucid1 )

I will say the new kdenlive has a slicker look and I can now see the audio wave pictoral within the timeline so I know where to cut if I am looking for a no audio point. I can now encode to x264 and aac again. I love it!!!

[Peter Goldstein]

I'm running into an issue on the configure step of the ffmpeg library install. I'm on a relatively vanilla Ubuntu 10.04 install and I've confirmed that the libmp3lame-dev package is installed. When I run configure with the suggested flags I get:

ERROR: libmp3lame not found

Any thoughts?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

After being throughly flamed by some developers I found out that revision 25128 caused FFmpeg to now require LAME ≥ 3.98.3 (I know better...I should have more throughly checked the commitdiff). I will update the guide tomorrow with a LAME compilation section. Until then you can omit --enable-libmp3lame. If you require mp3 audio encoding, then you can use a pipe as in:

ffmpeg -i input.foo -f wav - | lame -V5 - output.mp3

[andrew.46]

Hi FakeOutdoorsman,

I will update the guide tomorrow with a LAME compilation section.

That 'rolling release' model for your guide must be looking good round about now .

Andrew

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Hi FakeOutdoorsman,

That 'rolling release' model for your guide must be looking good round about now .

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Yes, definitely. As you've probably noticed a few of my Lucid updates never made it to the earlier guides.

Perhaps starting with 10.10 I will begin the 'rolling release' model. Thoughts?

For those wondering what Andrew and I are talking about see Howto: Build the svn MPlayer under the latest release version of Ubuntu for an example.

[andrew.46]

Hi FakeOutdoorsman,

Perhaps starting with 10.10 I will begin the 'rolling release' model. Thoughts?

It is a difficult question. I admire the way that you have covered so many releases of Ubuntu in a single guide and I am sure that this is at least part of the reason that your guide is so successful. Having said that I am sure there is a significant workload involved in keeping so many Ubuntu releases covered, the change in the rules with lame being a perfect example.

I will be interested to hear the thoughts of others who use your guide .

Andrew

[verb3k]

I will be interested to hear the thoughts of others who use your guide .

Andrew

FakeOutdoorsman should be in the FFmpeg Hall of Fame by now
He really contributed a lot to uplift the state of multimedia handling/encoding for users of ubuntu and other distros. He's always provided support to people on the forums, mailing list and IRC.

I personally am very grateful to FakeOutdoorsman, and would like to thank him very warmly for everything.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

I will update the guide tomorrow

Updated with a new LAME section. I took a slightly different approach to this package since so many repository packages depend on LAME. It will probably work fine alongside the repository LAME, but I didn't test that very much. I'm not sure if the method I used is the best way to go, but I think it will work for now. Perhaps Andrew's method in Howto: Build the development version of vlc under Ubuntu is the best way to provide external libraries for FFmpeg while not replacing any official repository packages. Ahhh...package management. So boring. Let's just get to the encoding already.

FakeOutdoorsman should be in the FFmpeg Hall of Fame by now
He really contributed a lot to uplift the state of multimedia handling/encoding for users of ubuntu and other distros. He's always provided support to people on the forums, mailing list and IRC.

I personally am very grateful to FakeOutdoorsman, and would like to thank him very warmly for everything.

Thanks! Much appreciated.

[DragGon7601]

The FFMpeg from the repository don't read some of the files I have (encoded in a newer x264 codec, I think).

The FFMpeg I get from this has trouble with the commands I give it. E.g it complains about not knowing what todo with the '-title "Movie name"' I was using, tried '-metadata title="my title"' but then all I got was the file name on my PSP (not the title I had given it).

If I change the '--pkgname=ffmpeg' part of the checkinstall command to '--pkgname=ffmpeg2' would it change the command line I use? Would I be able to use the Repository one with 'FFMpeg -i input.avi something.mp4' and the one I get from this guide with 'FFMpeg2 -i input.avi something.mp4'... Would they have some other conflict?

[FakeOutdoorsman]

The FFMpeg from the repository don't read some of the files I have (encoded in a newer x264 codec, I think).

An older FFmpeg could be able to decode video form a newer x264. Can you show your command and the complete output?

The FFMpeg I get from this has trouble with the commands I give it. E.g it complains about not knowing what todo with the '-title "Movie name"'

This option was basically renamed to what you're using below.

I was using, tried '-metadata title="my title"' but then all I got was the file name on my PSP (not the title I had given it).

Can you show your command and the complete output? I don't own a PSP, so I'm not sure why it won't accept the title.

If I change the '--pkgname=ffmpeg' part of the checkinstall command to '--pkgname=ffmpeg2' would it change the command line I use?

Sorry. I don't understand what you are asking.

Would I be able to use the Repository one with 'FFMpeg -i input.avi something.mp4' and the one I get from this guide with 'FFMpeg2 -i input.avi something.mp4'... Would they have some other conflict?

You can probably have both the repository version and a compiled FFmpeg on the same system. Just change the pkgname to something else like ffmpeg-svn (you'll probably want to do the same for x264, as in x264-git). By default, the ffmpeg command in your terminal will use the compiled ffmpeg in /usr/local/bin, but you can use an absolute path if you want to access the repository ffmpeg. Example:

/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i input ...