HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[sumero]

problem solved

[intoxination]

problem solved

Would you mind sharing how you did this? I am running into the exact same situation.

[sumero]

Everytime i add -async 44100..

i get this "TICK TACK TICK TICK TICK TACK"

noise for the first 3-5 seconds of the video...

and then it goes normal.

something is sooo wrong with -async.

there has to be something other than this..

it appears no command is a wild card for all videos.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Everytime i add -async 44100..

i get this "TICK TACK TICK TICK TICK TACK"

noise for the first 3-5 seconds of the video...

and then it goes normal.

something is sooo wrong with -async.

there has to be something other than this..

it appears no command is a wild card for all videos.

I can't help you unless you give me your FFmpeg command and the complete output for each problem you are encountering. Also, instead of replacing your messages with "problem solved", it would be helpful if you explain how you solved your problem for other users who may be experiencing similar issues.

FFmpeg doesn't support wildcards for batch conversion but you can use the find command in addition of FFmpeg to perform a batch conversion. Refer to the excellent find tutorial written by andrew.46:

Linux Basics: A gentle introduction to 'find'

the ffmpeg on the ffmpeg's web site ( the one that is downloadable from their web site )
has "vhook" features but does not have x264 lib.

/ffmpeg-0.5# ./configure --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab
ERROR: libx264 not found


as you can see it says libx264 not found.

i really wanna use libx264 with vhook side by side.
which files or folders can i copy from the SVN version of FFMPEG and put it into
the older version of FFMPEG so i can have both libx264 and vhook enabled a tthe same time?

i tried copy pasting everything from SVN's ffmpeg folder to the downloaded older version's
folder then configure, it didn't do the trick.

any ideas?

FFmpeg SVN does not contain vhook because it has been depreciated. You can download FFmpeg 0.5 and install that instead of FFmpeg SVN, but you will need to find a compatible x264 that will work with FFmpeg 0.5 because recent x264 has a changed API. I'm unsure what x264 revision you should use with FFmpeg 0.5. You can probably get an answer at the #ffmpeg IRC channel or ffmpeg-user mailing list.

[sumero]

by the way here's a question, does it matter what kinda server
you run ffmpeg on? for example if it has only 256 mb memory?

i mean is it possible i experience problems due to lack of memory
or something?

perhaps i should install ffmpeg on my imac as well and run
these commands?

is it possible? i guess i'll google it.

sumero

sorry, i meant to post a reply and it deleted my entire post
appears i clicked on "edit".. instead of reply.

[andrew.46]

Hi FakeOutdoorsman,

Congrats on this amazing guide reaching 198,469 views, I hope a small celebration is in order when the magic 200,000 mark is reached . I predict when the dust has settled from the Karmic release this guide will have some even more frenetic action when everybody realises that aac encoding is no longer possible with any permutation of the repository FFmpeg. Interesting times ahead...

Again: congratulations on this amazing guide!!

Andrew

[andybondy]

Hello,
after a week of going round in circles, Im hoping you can point me in the right direction.

I upgraded to Karmic, and cannot convert avi files to mp4 using the following command:

/bin/ffmpeg -threads 2 -i "file.avi" -vcodec libx264 -r 15 -b 192 -s 320x240 -acodec libmp3lame -ac 2 -ab 64 -ar 32000 "outputfile.avi"

This is via WinFF. I get part encoding up to a point - but then it says 'Audio encoding failed'

I have tried to use the package version of ffmpeg - and I have tried to compile a version of my own, but thats a whole other set of problems fitting FakeOutdoorsMan's excellent intructions for Intrepid and Jaunty to my Karmic upgrade.

I am a novice. Heres my output:

FFmpeg version SVN-r19352-4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --extra-cflags=-I/build/buildd/ffmpeg-0.5+svn20090706/debian/include --enable-shared --disable-static
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on Oct 13 2009 22:15:16, gcc: 4.4.1

I read that the AAC library has been dropped. Is this why I cannot encode to mp4 from avi?
Thanks

[ArtInvent]

I finally got a working version of Audacity 1.3.9 and libavcodec by asking for help at the audacity forums. Pointed me to this ppa, this is repo line I added in Synaptic

http://ppa.launchpad.net/philip5/extra/ubuntu jaunty main

And I added the authentication key in a terminal with

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0x500e60ce43c56f3f

This is the thread - http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewto...p=54091#p54091


I will reprint the post I just made there in thanks.

Per, thanks, this is the repo I've been looking for. Installed both ffmpeg and associated along with audacity from this ppa, and Audacity auto located the ffmpeg libs when I opened Preferences | Libraries | Locate. Awesome. The ppa does not seem to say if it has 32 bit only or 64 bit packages, I'm on 64 bit and it works fine so perhaps it is indeed both. Also has a lot of other good and up to date multimedia and driver packages. Very nice.


perab wrote:
Hello, ArtInvent!

You could try the repository from where I got a now working Audacity + ffmpeg. The location is found at https://launchpad.net/~philip5 There you will find the address to Philip's repo as well as the security key. And despite that Philip is a swede, the pages are in English. Audacity and Ffmpeg are found under "extra". This is the same repository as which I mentioned in a previous post above.

Per

[ArtInvent]

As far as lack of aac encoding goes, have no idea why this would be dropped, it's pretty important. In Kdenlive I was trying to encode video to mp4 container with h264 and aac and it seems to always crash on render. So instead I rendered to .mov in the DNxHD (super high quality) codec, then used HandBrake to make my final mp4 files. I think I read that Handbrake has its own ffmpeg libs. Works well for now, though if they ever update their ffmpeg I guess that would stop working for aac as well.

My HandBrake version says 0.9.3-1.

One thing puzzling in HandBrake is that bitrate in aac seems limited to 160k for some reason, and I can't get resize video option to work either (I have to render to the exact final size I want in kdenlive.) The Windows version of HandBrake has neither of these limitations.

[qyot27]

I read that the AAC library has been dropped. Is this why I cannot encode to mp4 from avi?

FAAC, which is an AAC encoder, was dropped. FFmpeg can still decode AAC just fine (whether by its own internal decoder or through FAAD2).

As far as lack of aac encoding goes, have no idea why this would be dropped, it's pretty important.

It may be important, but respecting software licenses are more important. Including FAAC support violates the GPL and LGPL by virtue of the fact that FAAC contains code from the MPEG reference encoder. That fact wasn't always known, but I'm sure the decision to remove it happened very very shortly after it was found out.

Straight from the horse's mouth (Audiocoding's website):
"FAAC is based on the original ISO MPEG reference code. The changes to this code are licensed under the LGPL license. The original license is not compatible with the LGPL, please be aware of this when using FAAC. The original license text can be found in the README file included in the download package."

It certainly doesn't stop you from grabbing/compiling an independent build of FAAC or using, say, Nero's AAC encoder (which handily beats FAAC in quality anyway; and yes, it does have a Linux version), and then simply muxing the video and audio together after-the-fact.