HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[LuizCB]

Hello

Did anyone tried already the guide from post #1 on Natty? If so, it goes/works with the same steps?

looking back I see this posts:
1431 through
1441


Is this a final and effective way of doing it?

Regards

[FakeOutdoorsman]

I haven't tried since those posts so I'm not sure what the current status is. You can try adding --enable-shared to both x264 and FFmpeg, and then running sudo ldconfig after everything installs.

[LuizCB]

Thanks FakeOutdoorsman

I'm installing it following your guide and logging all CLI. I'll post it here as soon as i finish it, for good or for .... bad

[Wastrelway]

I'd suggest alternate and (perhaps for us old-school guys) simpler instructions that do not use git. I am behind a firewall and proxy server and could not get the totally BOGUS "git clone git://git.videolan.org/x264.git" command to do anything except create an error. (I did try. I reconfigured the proxy etc.) You don't NEED git. Get the latest source and compile, unless your paycheck depends on your use of git.
Eric

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Git makes it easy to keep up with upstream changes. It's also useful for viewing the commit log and for making patches. It would be less efficient to download a full tarball each time I wanted to update. This guide is about using the latest x264 and FFmpeg and both of these projects use Git.

I had daily tarball links until recently. I removed them during FFmpeg's turmoiled transition from SVN to Git but perhaps I'll re-introduce them.

[mc4man]

You can try adding --enable-shared to both x264 and FFmpeg, and then running sudo ldconfig after everything installs.

assuming this refers to 11.04
You can probably just build x264 as shared, then ffmpeg as static
(if not inclined to introduce new shared ffmpeg libs

Otherwise building a static x264 as normal, (w/ the current default gcc-4.5+), then ffmpeg w/ gcc-4.4 will also work fine
(or both w/ gcc-4.4

Or figure out what the issue is, has been mentioned the default gcc flag of --as-needed may be a factor

[qyot27]

I'd suggest alternate and (perhaps for us old-school guys) simpler instructions that do not use git. I am behind a firewall and proxy server and could not get the totally BOGUS "git clone git://git.videolan.org/x264.git" command to do anything except create an error. (I did try. I reconfigured the proxy etc.) You don't NEED git. Get the latest source and compile, unless your paycheck depends on your use of git.
Eric

Git may not be 'necessary', but it is far more convenient from a Terminal-only situation - wget-snagged tarballs are only as updated as the auto-package system is set to make them (in x264's case, that's once-daily; I can't see any links to such code on FFmpeg's download page, only their periodic release tarballs), whereas Git is always the absolute latest code because you're tapping into the direct development pipeline. The proxy/firewall thing is a known issue, and probably screws up other source management systems like CVS and SVN too, like the note on FFmpeg's download page says.

I'd think it rather safe to assume that those who cannot access Git because of a proxy or firewall interfering are in the relative minority compared to those who can access it with no problems. It would be a good idea to provide relevant links to tarballs, but you aren't guaranteed to have the latest code that way. Direct 'latest' tarball links from the git repository aren't possible, because the name changes constantly with the git hash.

The alternate solution is to add x264's and FFmpeg's git commit log RSS feeds and manually snag the latest commit snapshot through the web browser. The only caveat is that the RSS commit links drop you to a page with no snapshot link - you have to click the header bar with the commit message in bold or the 'commit' link to get the page with the actual tarball.

http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264.git;a=summary
http://git.ffmpeg.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=summary





As a relative aside, I've always considered git.ffmpeg.org the official Git repo, since it was kept in sync with SVN and was the only one listed on ffmpeg.org/download.html for years until things blew up last month (now all 5 'major' - I guess - repos are listed there).

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Git snapshots for FFmpeg are available, but it isn't very obvious on the Gitweb interface. Not particularly wget friendly, but it works fine like this:

wget "http://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=snapshot;h=HEAD;sf=tgz" -O ffmpeg-latest-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).tar.gz

As a relative aside, I've always considered git.ffmpeg.org the official Git repo, since it was kept in sync with SVN and was the only one listed on ffmpeg.org/download.html for years until things blew up last month (now all 5 'major' - I guess - repos are listed there).

The whole series of events is unfortunate. During SVN usage the official Git mirror was git.ffmpeg.org, but I don't consider any of them to be "official" yet. I'm actually using the videolan repository lately because of a certain useful commit that may never make it into git.ffmpeg.org.

[LuizCB]

FakeOutdoorsman

There we go...

http://paste.ubuntu.com/570730/

All steps on 11.04

lcb@srvr:~$ uname -a
Linux srvr.kcasa.lan 2.6.38-4-generic-pae #31-Ubuntu SMP Thu Feb 17 01:24:59 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
lcb@srvr:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.38-4-generic-pae (buildd@vernadsky) (gcc version 4.5.2 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.5.2-2ubuntu3) ) #31-Ubuntu SMP Thu Feb 17 01:24:59 UTC 2011

*x264* *git x264* *configure x264* *make x264* *checkinstall x264* *ffmpeg* *git ffmpeg* *configure ffmpeg* *make ffmpeg* *checkinstall ffmpeg* *hash* *qt-faststart*

Tell me if anything's wrong, missing things, errors, etc...
(I had a hard time to put putty log together - some sections messed up, don't know why - but it looks better now)

Glad to help you. Keep it up

Regards,

Luiz

[qyot27]

I'm actually using the videolan repository lately because of a certain useful commit that may never make it into git.ffmpeg.org.

The expanded list of video filters in libavfilter/libmpcodecs, I presume? Or something else?