HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[andrew.46]

abcde version 2.7.1 will be out in a few days and as mentioned previously in this thread it now features support for FFmpeg or avconv. Some excerpts from the changelog:

  * Support added for encoding to MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (mp2)
    with either twolame or FFmpeg / avconv. Tagging with mid3v2.
  * Encoding to WavPack with FFmpeg. Some slight changes to WavPack
    syntax with backward compatibility built in for abcde 2.7. 
  * Encoding to m4a container with FFmpeg or avconv. This allows
    for alac encoding with FFmpeg's reverse engineered alac encoder.

There are not so many native FFmpeg audio encoders as I found, although I would like to add support for the FFmpeg aac encoder when it is officially declared non-experimental.

[mc4man]

Is there any reason to continue to enable the external dcadec?
(- thought maybe I saw some instances where the ext. 'acted' better..

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Not that I know of, and I was told the new native decoder (based on libdcadec and by the same author, foo86), should be faster. There is no more substantial development planned for libdcadec.

[mc4man]

Not that I know of, and I was told the new native decoder (based on libdcadec and by the same author, foo86), should be faster. There is no more substantial development planned for libdcadec.

Thanks, am going to get rid of the external support
(- turns out 'issue' was not ffmpeg's.

[lewdposter]

Any news?

[FakeOutdoorsman]

See https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/HWAccelIntro

[goofprog]

there is one. When AC3 is used on the original file, I am forced to use the experimental one. AAC is default for a MP4 file.

[mc4man]

Have gotten some requests about providing for 16.04, I'm a bit ambivalent about that atm. 16.04 has FFmpeg already in a reasonable state & likely some sources that use the binary are also in decent shape.
A 3.x.x ffmpeg, while obviously superior, would possibly break those sources that use the binary & would break qt-faststart which is in the ffmpeg package. (now FFmpeg has 3 packages not including the shared ones, ffmpeg, ffmpeg-doc & ffmeg-dbg, qt-faststart in in the ffmpeg package.

So for myself have decided to allow both ffmpeg repo & ffmpeg master to co-exist & both be available without any PATH changes. For a little bit the master will be in the below ppa in case anyone wants to check out & comment on method. I'm not too sure how it will 'fly' so to speak.

Basically ffmpeg master is installed completely to /opt, (no change there from previous except for manpages).
The binaries & man's are linked to /usr
To allow both FFmpeg sources the links are named differently, eg. - ffmpeg2, ffprobe2, ffplay2, ffserver2 & man's are called from those names, ie. man ffmpeg2 ect.
The master package is named ffmpeg-static.

No changes to the ffmpeg source except may alter the man comment shown in terminal to reflect how to open the proper man for ffmpeg master.

Ex. in same terminal, the ffmpeg in example is the same as 16.04 repo with a few small changes (added libfaac, libfdkaac, removed ext. info on mpc as it messes with audacious & mpc8 -

~$ ffmpeg
ffmpeg version 2.8.6-1ubuntu2.1~ppa3 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 5.3.1 (Ubuntu 5.3.1-14ubuntu2) 20160413
configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version='1ubuntu2.1~ppa3' --build-suffix=-ffmpeg --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --cc=cc --cxx=g++ --enable-gpl --enable-shared --disable-stripping --disable-decoder=libopenjpeg --disable-decoder=libschroedinger --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzvbi --enable-openal --enable-opengl --enable-x11grab --enable-nonfree --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfaac --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-libzmq --enable-frei0r --enable-libx264 --enable-libopencv
libavutil 54. 31.100 / 54. 31.100
libavcodec 56. 60.100 / 56. 60.100
libavformat 56. 40.101 / 56. 40.101
libavdevice 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavfilter 5. 40.101 / 5. 40.101
libavresample 2. 1. 0 / 2. 1. 0
libswscale 3. 1.101 / 3. 1.101
libswresample 1. 2.101 / 1. 2.101
libpostproc 53. 3.100 / 53. 3.100
Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder
usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile options] outfile}...

Use -h to get full help or, even better, run 'man ffmpeg'

doug@doug-HP-Pavilion-Notebook:~$ ffmpeg2
ffmpeg version N-79593-g2063f3e Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 5.3.1 (Ubuntu 5.3.1-14ubuntu2) 20160413
configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab
libavutil 55. 22.101 / 55. 22.101
libavcodec 57. 38.100 / 57. 38.100
libavformat 57. 34.103 / 57. 34.103
libavdevice 57. 0.101 / 57. 0.101
libavfilter 6. 44.100 / 6. 44.100
libavresample 3. 0. 0 / 3. 0. 0
libswscale 4. 1.100 / 4. 1.100
libswresample 2. 0.101 / 2. 0.101
libpostproc 54. 0.100 / 54. 0.100
Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder
usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile options] outfile}...

Use -h to get full help or, even better, run 'man ffmpeg2'

Any comments on this use method welcome.

https://launchpad.net/~mc3man/+archi...tu/ffmpeg-test

[FakeOutdoorsman]

A 3.x.x ffmpeg, while obviously superior, would possibly break those sources that use the binary & would break qt-faststart which is in the ffmpeg package.

qt-faststart could possibly be dropped because ffmpeg has the "-movflags +faststart" option. I don't know anyone who uses the qt-faststart tool which is probably not really maintained anymore.

To allow both FFmpeg sources the links are named differently, eg. - ffmpeg2, ffprobe2, ffplay2, ffserver2 & man's are called from those names, ie. man ffmpeg2 ect.
The master package is named ffmpeg-static.

"ffmpeg2" may confuse users into thinking that it is part of the 2.x release branch. Maybe ff*-git? Not great either...

Ex. in same terminal, the ffmpeg in example is the same as 16.04 repo with a few small changes (added libfaac, libfdkaac, removed ext. info on mpc as it messes with audacious & mpc8 -

libfaac support will be removed once the native encoder gets a speedup. As usual there is no timeline for that, however. I see no need for it with aac and libfdk_aac available.

[mc4man]

qt-faststart could possibly be dropped because ffmpeg has the "-movflags +faststart" option. I don't know anyone who uses the qt-faststart tool which is probably not really maintained anymore.


"ffmpeg2" may confuse users into thinking that it is part of the 2.x release branch. Maybe ff*-git? Not great either...


libfaac support will be removed once the native encoder gets a speedup. As usual there is no timeline for that, however. I see no need for it with aac and libfdk_aac available.

I think you're correct, the hope most users would read a ppa page first is wishful. So will just do as before & in 16.04 a master FFmpeg package will replace the current repo ffmpeg package.
Any app that uses the binary & fails on master - if I can fix will present rebuilds, if not then that's a user choice/decision.
or
Set up as install one the other is removed & vice-versa, in other words use a different package name, still undecided there... The upside of that is don't have to care about breaking other sources as they'll be removed. The downside is maybe some would actually still work, at least for a while.
While I'm leaning towards using the same name & presenting replacements as & when possible the other way is much easier & less work..
(- the official list isn't that extensive, not all listed have ffmpeg as an actual depend either. -

~$ apt-cache rdepends ffmpeg
ffmpeg
Reverse Depends:
ffmpeg-dbg
ffmpeg:i386
videotrans
ffmpeg:i386
devede
ffmpeg:i386
|zoneminder
ffmpeg:i386
|youtube-dl
ffmpeg:i386
xwax
ffmpeg:i386
|winff-qt
ffmpeg:i386
|winff-gtk2
ffmpeg:i386
vokoscreen
ffmpeg:i386
view3dscene
ffmpeg:i386
ubuntustudio-video
ffmpeg:i386
stopmotion
ffmpeg:i386
qnapi
ffmpeg:i386
python3-woo
ffmpeg:i386
|python3-pafy
ffmpeg:i386
python3-matplotlib
ffmpeg:i386
python-woo
ffmpeg:i386
python-scitools
ffmpeg:i386
python-matplotlib
ffmpeg:i386
performous-tools
ffmpeg:i386
pencil2d
ffmpeg:i386
pacpl
ffmpeg:i386
multimedia-video
ffmpeg:i386
|mps-youtube
ffmpeg:i386
motion
ffmpeg:i386
mediathekview
ffmpeg:i386
libav-tools
ffmpeg:i386
kphotoalbum
ffmpeg:i386
kmplayer
ffmpeg:i386
kino
ffmpeg:i386
kdenlive
ffmpeg:i386
jsymphonic
ffmpeg:i386
imagination
ffmpeg:i386
|get-iplayer
ffmpeg:i386
imagemagick-6.q16
ffmpeg:i386
connectome-workbench
ffmpeg:i386

As far as libfaac - that was just for a personal rebuild of 2.8.6 as at least one app has not moved off of faac via ffmpeg & I was testing it (the app)
Good to know about faststart as wasn't possible to do in a ppa statically linked binaries ffmpeg