HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[verb3k]

@qyot27:
Thanks for mini howto.
I did the same thing today. The new lavf/ffms integration is very good. Dark_Shikari says there will also be an API for filtering (deinterlacing, resizing, crop etc...) and hopefully trimming support (ranges of frames).

[Bachstelze]

I sadly could not get my custom prefix idea to work, although I am open to it if anyone knows how to make it play nice.

The trick is to set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable so that the correct ffmpeg gets used. Something like:

firas@momiji ffmpeg % ./configure --disable-encoders --enable-shared --enable-postproc --enable-gpl --prefix=$PWD/../ffmpeg-decoder-only
[...]
firas@momiji ffmpeg % make
[...]
firas@momiji ffmpeg % make install
[...]
firas@momiji ffmpeg % cd ../ffms2-2.13_src
firas@momiji ffms2-2.13_src % PKG_CONFIG_PATH=../ffmpeg-decoder-only/lib/pkgconfig ./configure

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Another new addition that I forgot to mention is FFprobe, a "simple multimedia streams analyzer". I haven't used it much, but here's an example:

$ ffprobe -show_streams nimbus2.mp4
FFprobe version SVN-r22144, Copyright (c) 2007-2010 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Mar  1 2010 21:14:27 with gcc 4.4.3
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-pthreads --enable-x11grab --arch=x86_64
  libavutil     50. 9. 0 / 50. 9. 0
  libavcodec    52.55. 0 / 52.55. 0
  libavformat   52.54. 0 / 52.54. 0
  libavdevice   52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
  libswscale     0.10. 0 /  0.10. 0
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'nimbus2.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf52.54.0
  Duration: 04:48:16.76, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 35 kb/s
    Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 640x360 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 31 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 60 tbc
[STREAM]
index=0
codec_name=h264
codec_long_name=H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
codec_type=video
codec_time_base=1/60
codec_tag_string=avc1
codec_tag=0x31637661
width=640
height=360
has_b_frames=2
sample_aspect_ratio=1:1
display_aspect_ratio=1:1
pix_fmt=yuv420p
r_frame_rate=30/1
avg_frame_rate=30/1
time_base=1/30
language=und
start_time=0.000000 
duration=17296.766667 
TAG:language=und
[/STREAM]

[mc4man]

have just seen the libavcodec native amr narrow band decoder arrive:
D A amrnb Adaptive Multi-Rate NarrowBand

While overall don't see any issues there - enabling the opencore along with this new built-in support, did see it have an effect on something

Was packaging the new xine-libs 1.18 for karmic for the flac fixes and wmap support (both of which work fine), and amr decoding broke.
A re-build of ffmpeg with --disable-decoder=amrnb and a xine-lib re-build resolved that.
(only mentioning in case it happened to something else built off/or dependant of a recent ffmpeg

[qyot27]

The trick is to set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable so that the correct ffmpeg gets used. Something like:

firas@momiji ffmpeg % ./configure --disable-encoders --enable-shared --enable-postproc --enable-gpl --prefix=$PWD/../ffmpeg-decoder-only
[...]
firas@momiji ffmpeg % make
[...]
firas@momiji ffmpeg % make install
[...]
firas@momiji ffmpeg % cd ../ffms2-2.13_src
firas@momiji ffms2-2.13_src % PKG_CONFIG_PATH=../ffmpeg-decoder-only/lib/pkgconfig ./configure

I wonder why I wasn't able to find references to that directory being the one PKG_CONFIG_PATH needed to be pointed to. The obvious answers are always the hardest to see, I guess.

Unfortunately, while FFMS2 did pick up FFmpeg when I did it that way, x264 still failed to pick up FFMS2...even though it was installed to the same prefix as FFmpeg, and LAVF was picked up just fine. On Windows, MSys/MinGW had no problems with that step - x264 detected both from the custom prefix. So maybe there's a version mismatch somewhere other than in GCC that's messing this up for me.

[Bachstelze]

Unfortunately, while FFMS2 did pick up FFmpeg when I did it that way, x264 still failed to pick up FFMS2...even though it was installed to the same prefix as FFmpeg, and LAVF was picked up just fine. On Windows, MSys/MinGW had no problems with that step - x264 detected both from the custom prefix. So maybe there's a version mismatch somewhere other than in GCC that's messing this up for me.

If you just do a normal sudo make install on FFMS2, x264 will pick it. I don't think you need both FFMS2 and LAVF anyway... I'll try with FFMS2 in a custom prefix, though.

EDIT

If I do this:

firas@momiji ffms2-2.13_src % PKG_CONFIG_PATH=../ffmpeg-decoder-only/lib/pkgconfig ./configure --prefix=$PWD/../ffms2 && make && make install
[..]
firas@momiji ffms2-2.13_src % cd ../x264
firas@momiji x264 % PKG_CONFIG_PATH=../ffmpeg-decoder-only/lib/pkgconfig:../ffms2/lib/pkgconfig ./configure

The configure script for x264 picks up FFMS2, but not LAVF...

EDIT2

Apparently x264 doesn't work with a decoder-only ffmpeg, it needs libavutil too.

[qyot27]

If you just do a normal sudo make install on FFMS2, x264 will pick it. I don't think you need both FFMS2 and LAVF anyway... I'll try with FFMS2 in a custom prefix, though.

In the steps I'd posted, I did do a normal sudo make install on FFMS2, when it installed to the default system area. My test for custom prefixes was to make sure both the decoding FFmpeg and FFMS2 were isolated and easy to delete after I was done with them (even though the initial problem was that FFMS2 wasn't seeing FFmpeg, but now it's x264 not picking up both even when they're in the same *custom* place).

Of course, it's not that both are required, it's just nice to have both if you were already making sure FFMS2 is there. I honestly don't know of a situation where LAVF is preferable to FFMS2, but hey, it's there, so might as well (and if by chance FFMS2 does have a problem with something, you can try dropping down to LAVF and see if it does it correctly).

[qyot27]

Ok, so here's a thread that mentioned this:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1369396

Seems that you can use PKG_CONFIG_PATH on x264, too (although I distinctly remember it failing...idk). There's another solution there concerning --extra-cflags/--extra-ldflags, but that's what I was trying to get work - I pointed it toward the /include and /lib directories in the install directory, though, not the ones that generate in the original ffmpeg and ffms2 directories. And like I said, MSys/MinGW doesn't have a problem with detecting both when it's pointing to the install directory.

EDIT: Beat me to it. In my notes, when I say 'decoding-only' I only mean that FFmpeg was compiled without encoders or muxers or things like that. libavutil still is built on mine.

[andrew.46]

Is it just me that has been gaving some issues building FFmpeg over the last 12 hours? A variety of errors I suspect linked to the new build process...

Andrew

[Bachstelze]

Is it just me that has been gaving some issues building FFmpeg over the last 12 hours? A variety of errors I suspect linked to the new build process...

Andrew

Works For Me™ with this configure line:

./configure --enable-gpl --enable-shared --enable-postproc --enable-libfaad --enable-libvorbis