HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Hi,

I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)
and I couldn't get winff to work
then followed the "Install FFmpeg and x264 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS steps

but winff doesn't want want to work because of "Unknown encoder 'libx264'"

thanks

Your first screenshot shows that you are using the FFmpeg from the Ubuntu repository, and not a compiled version that you would get from this guide. By default, FFmpeg from the Ubuntu repository does not have libx264 enabled. You must install libavcodec-extra-52 after installing FFmpeg if you want to enable libx264 and other restricted encoders. However, FFmpeg from the Karmic repository is troublesome because you can't encode to AAC audio (your WinFF preset uses AAC) with FFmpeg even after installing libavcodec-extra-52 because libfaac (the AAC encoder) has been removed due to a licensing issue. Annoying.

Anyway, in my opinion, the easiest way to get everything working right with FFmpeg and WinFF is to compile FFmpeg as shown in this guide, but maybe one of the WinFF developers will have some better advice since I do not have much experience with WinFF.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Thank you FakeOutdoorsman for this thread. My life is better because of it.

Thanks, kaninfaan! I didn't mean to reply out or order, but I must have submitted the wrong reply first.

Hey all, Everything seemed to go very well w/ the install. When all was completed I attempted to convert my first vid. Only prob is. Im getting a bash...usr/bin/ffmpeg, no such file or dir.

What is your FFmpeg command and the full output? This guide installs to /usr/local/bin and not /usr/bin.

[Feelin_froggy8877]

Not sure what happened the first couple times I had tried, but now all the sudden it is working. (go figure) I did not change anything in this command.

ffmpeg -i Familyguy.avi -pass 1 -an -vcodec libx264 -vpre fastfirstpass -vpre ipod640 -b 512k -bt 512k -s 640x480 -threads 0 -f rawvideo -y /dev/null && ffmpeg -i Familyguy.avi -pass 2 -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -vpre ipod640 -b 512k -bt 512k -s 640x480 -threads 0 Familyguy.mp4

Well, very good HOWTO, thank you very much.

[DeaD SouL]

thats stranger.. i tried it yesterday but it didn't work,

so because of your tip, i did:

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg

then went to the ffmpeg source folder which i created & configured yesterday and entered

sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion "3:0.svn`date +%Y%m%d`-12ubuntu3" --default

finaly

sudo apt-get install winff

and i gave it a try............... it worked..!!

aw, thanks a lot man, i really do appreciate your help

bests

[stmiller]

Or just use this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~motumedia/+archive/ppa

?

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:motumedia

[nikos_web]

Hi FakeOutdoorsman, and thank you for your great posting. (I am only new to Linux and I found your instructions very clear to follow).

I followed your recommended steps carefully, however, I still cannot use VLC fully: When I try to convert video to .mp4, I still get the same error message:
"
Streaming / Transcoding failed:
It seems your FFMPEG (libavcodec) installation lacks the following encoder:
MPEG AAC Audio.
If you don't know how to fix this, ask for support from your distribution.

This is not an error inside VLC media player.
Do not contact the VideoLAN project about this issue.

"

Can you please advise what further actions I could take, in order to enable VLC to encode into .mp4?
(I have ubuntu 9.10 amd64)

Many thanks,
Nikos.

[Arup]

Or just use this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~motumedia/+archive/ppa

?

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:motumedia

Most of the stuff there is quite old considering this thread is about compiling and updating these codecs on a regular basis. Problem with PPAs is that the sometimes they are dependent on the person putting up the packages, sometimes the updates stop for months. Other times you end up brining in other stuff which you didn't anticipate as they are in the PPA itself.

[mc4man]

I followed your recommended steps carefully, however, I still cannot use VLC fully: When I try to convert video to .mp4, I still get the same error message.....

While this is not in the scope of this guide a bit of info there. Vlc (and some other apps), uses the system (shared) ffmpeg libraries for much of it's encoding,decoding.

As has been noted here and elsewhere the karmic ffmeg shared libs don't support aac encoding and will not thru libaac in the future. ( ubuntu 10.04 may offer native ffmpeg aac encoding, if so, it's usefulness may be debatable

The means to installing 'better' shared ffmpeg libs are varied, I don't believe there is a generic 'best' way.

The major consideration is the reason for doing so and which revision of ffmpeg one decides to use to best satisfy that reason.

At certain -r's and definitely with the current svn, you'd need to also re-build some libavcodec dependent apps to maintain compatibility and in particular, with vlc, may need to match the vlc source to ffmpeg/x264 sources
(vlc doesn't maintain sync with ffmpeg to the extent mplayer does.

[qyot27]

Hi FakeOutdoorsman, and thank you for your great posting. (I am only new to Linux and I found your instructions very clear to follow).

I followed your recommended steps carefully, however, I still cannot use VLC fully: When I try to convert video to .mp4, I still get the same error message:
"
Streaming / Transcoding failed:
It seems your FFMPEG (libavcodec) installation lacks the following encoder:
MPEG AAC Audio.
If you don't know how to fix this, ask for support from your distribution.

This is not an error inside VLC media player.
Do not contact the VideoLAN project about this issue.

"

Can you please advise what further actions I could take, in order to enable VLC to encode into .mp4?
(I have ubuntu 9.10 amd64)

Many thanks,
Nikos.

Considering the rejection of libfaac from ffmpeg, just choose MP3 as the audio format instead (choose to edit the profile and then click over to the Audio codec tab). It's perfectly acceptable by MPEG-4 standards to use MP3 in conjunction with the MP4 container and ASP (i.e. Xvid) or H.264 video. And you won't run into the issues you would with AAC support - not to mention that FAAC has a pretty bad reputation for quality anyway (to the point that the developers of it even tell people it's not up to par). If I remember my comparison tests correctly, Lame even beat out FAAC, and as any MP3 encoding through VLC via ffmpeg is likely coming from Lame (barring some of those patent issues with the repositories and the stock ffmpeg, which I can never seem to keep straight), then that'll be fine.

Otherwise, grab the standalone version of FAAC or Nero AAC, encode the audio separately, and combine it with the video using MP4Box. Or hey, if the source audio of the file you're trying to convert is AAC or MP3 or AC3, just tell VLC to keep the original audio stream - that way you don't lose quality by introducing more lossy conversions than necessary (as AC3 is also an accepted audio stream format in MP4 now, and most if not all of the major video players should support it if we're talking recent builds).

[sumero]

so let me get this straight, the only notable feature with
new ubuntu 9.10 is that it is a "KOLA" name which sounds
delicious like COCA COLA out of the FRIDGE and AMAZON
CLOUD HOSTING?

so, if a person simply looking EFFICIENCY and SPEED..
do they have a reason to upgrade to KARMIT?

sumero