HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[FakeOutdoorsman]

is there a reason why the "Install libvpx (optional)" instructions aren't in the Karmic Koala guide?

Not a good reason. I meant to add it to Karmic after adding it to Lucid, but it's almost been a month already. I'll test it on Karmic now and add it shortly.

Update: libvpx added to Karmic. Installed successfully on a 32-bit VM.

[papapep]

What an awesome tutorial, thanks a lot!

[Chame_Wizard]

sudo aptitude ffmpeg ffmpeg-dbg

Always doing it.

[sailor420]

I'm getting the following error when compiling ffmpeg:

/home/ravenel/source/ffmpeg/libavformat/libavformat.a(id3v2.o): In function `read_ttag':
/home/ravenel/source/ffmpeg/libavformat/id3v2.c:142: undefined reference to `ff_id3v1_genre_str'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [ffmpeg_g] Error 1

Any ideas?

FYI, here are the configuration options I passed:

./configure --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-memalign-hack --enable-runtime-cpudetect --disable-devices --disable-filters --disable-encoders --disable-muxers --disable-network --disable-outdevs --disable-decoder=aac,ac3,adpcm_*,alac,als,ape,atrac?,cook,dca,dsicinaudio,dxa,eac3,flac,interplay_dpcm,mlp,mp1,mp2,mp3,mp3*,mpc?,pcm_*,qcelp,ra_*,sipr,truehd,truespeech,tta,vorbis,wavpack,wma*,twinvq --disable-demuxer=aac,ac3,pcm_*,ape,amr,***,au,avs,dts,eac3,flac,mp3,mpc,mpc8,truehd,tta,w64,wav,wv --disable-parser=aac,ac3,dca,mlp,mpegaudio

[sailor420]

Apparently this is due to a bug in ffmpeg. I retried using source from 6/1 (just a date I picked), and it worked fine.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

FYI, here are the configuration options I passed:

./configure --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-memalign-hack --enable-runtime-cpudetect --disable-devices --disable-filters --disable-encoders --disable-muxers --disable-network --disable-outdevs --disable-decoder=aac,ac3,adpcm_*,alac,als,ape,atrac?,cook,dca,dsicinaudio,dxa,eac3,flac,interplay_dpcm,mlp,mp1,mp2,mp3,mp3*,mpc?,pcm_*,qcelp,ra_*,sipr,truehd,truespeech,tta,vorbis,wavpack,wma*,twinvq --disable-demuxer=aac,ac3,pcm_*,ape,amr,***,au,avs,dts,eac3,flac,mp3,mpc,mpc8,truehd,tta,w64,wav,wv --disable-parser=aac,ac3,dca,mlp,mpegaudio

I'm curious as to why you are disabling so many options. Have you tried the --disable-everything option? You can use that and then follow it with whatever --enable-foo that you want. Might make your ./configure a little smaller and easier to read.

Apparently this is due to a bug in ffmpeg. I retried using source from 6/1 (just a date I picked), and it worked fine.

r24030 using both the ./configure from the guide and your ./configure compiled fine for me on x86_64 Lucid.

This happens once in a while when compiling FFmpeg SVN. Occasionally a revision will break something, but it is rare when a fix doesn't come quickly. Last time I let the developers in the #ffmpeg-devel IRC channel know that the most recent revision failed to make it was fixed very quickly.

Update: You probably don't need --enable-memalign-hack unless you're cross-compiling for Windows.

[sailor420]

Thanks! I was following a guide from MakeMKV which suggested those options: http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewto...t=1313&start=0

I talked with the author of that guide, and he found a way to get it running--notably by doing just as you suggested and running --disable-all and then just enabling the things we needed.

Thanks for the informative response, much appreciated. Great guide!

[sailor420]

Updating FFmpeg and x264
Development of FFmpeg and x264 is active and an occasional update can give you new features and bug fixes. To update FFmpeg and x264 you will need to remove the packages, make distclean, update the source, recompile, and install. To update x264:

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg x264 libx264-dev
cd ~/x264
make distclean
git pull

Now compile x264 as shown earlier in the guide starting with the x264 ./configure line. Now FFmpeg:

cd ~/ffmpeg
make distclean
svn update

Now continue with the installation starting with the FFmpeg ./configure line.


Reverting Changes Made by This Guide
To remove FFmpeg/x264 and other packages added for this guide:

sudo apt-get remove x264 ffmpeg qt-faststart build-essential subversion git-core checkinstall yasm texi2html libfaac-dev libmp3lame-dev libsdl1.2-dev libtheora-dev libvorbis-dev libx11-dev libxfixes-dev libxvidcore-dev zlib1g-dev

Lastly, delete the ffmpeg and x264 directories in your home folder.

Many thanks for including this bit. So many guide neglect upgrade and removal instructions, so it's great to see it included. Great guide!

[leonidv]

It's better to add zero step:

LC_LANG="en_US.utf8"

because output of svn info is locale sensitive.

[Stoneface]

Just did a test run converting a .ogv (recordMyDesktop file) to a mp4 using ffmpeg (built using this threads tutorial).

$ ffmpeg -i all-in-one-seo-img-2.ogv -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow -crf 22 -threads 0 output.mp4

I must say it went very well and quality seems to be good. Any tips or remarks on the way I converted this file?