HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[George Heine]

First, thanks to Fake O. for maintaining this great tutorial - have used it several times now.

QUESTION: Assuming you've got three non-networked systems with the same version of the same OS (e.g., Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and you've
compiled ffmpeg on one system, what do you need to copy, besides the file in ~/bin, to the other systems to give them a working ffmpeg?

[dannyboy79]

If i follow this guide how do I make kdenlive (or any other software which relies on ffmpeg, obs-studio etc etc) use this version of ffmpeg which is installed in my home directory?

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Assuming you've got three non-networked systems with the same version of the same OS (e.g., Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and you've
compiled ffmpeg on one system, what do you need to copy, besides the file in ~/bin, to the other systems to give them a working ffmpeg?

Sorry for the delay; I was traveling. Give it a try, but I can't say for sure if it will work or not due to potential differences between each computer. You will only need ~/bin/ffmpeg unless you also want the man pages. If it doesn't work just post the error here and we can try to help.

If i follow this guide how do I make kdenlive (or any other software which relies on ffmpeg, obs-studio etc etc) use this version of ffmpeg which is installed in my home directory?

Do they use the FFmpeg libraries and/or the binary? I think Kdenlive uses the ffmpeg binary to export files. Does it use your PATH to find ffmpeg, or does it look in a specific directory? Has it been patched by the maintainers to specifically look for avconv instead? Maybe it has a setting to allow you to choose where the binary is? Sorry, I'm away from my usual computer and can't test.

If they require the libraries then it will be more challenging because:

• there may be major API differences between the repository offerings and your new, compiled FFmpeg
• the repo package may be old and may require an older API version
• this guide does not install (shared) libraries to the system

You would probably have to compile each program, or maybe there is a PPA that offers a solution. I may be wrong, but I don't think there is one. This type of more cutting-edge/customized-compiled usage may be better suited with a different distro.

[mc4man]

First, thanks to Fake O. for maintaining this great tutorial - have used it several times now.

QUESTION: Assuming you've got three non-networked systems with the same version of the same OS (e.g., Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and you've
compiled ffmpeg on one system, what do you need to copy, besides the file in ~/bin, to the other systems to give them a working ffmpeg?

As a bit of an add-on to FO's reply -
On your other installs you'll need to have installed any packages that provide whatever shared libs your current FFmpeg source binaries are using. It's quite possible your transferred to installs will have most, if not all, already installed. Easily checked by - after copying over run
ldd /path/to/ffmpeg
(if copying over the other ffmpeg binaries ck. them also

Anything that shows => not found will have to be rectified by installing whatever package provides the missing .so

[mc4man]

If i follow this guide how do I make kdenlive (or any other software which relies on ffmpeg, obs-studio etc etc) use this version of ffmpeg which is installed in my home directory?

Again as an add-on -
I don't use kdenlive but what you may need to look at is mlt (libmlt6 specifically), it is a dep of kdenlive that does depend on ffmpeg/libav shared libs. If it is a factor for your task(s) then mlt had to be rebuilt for the libav10/11 API , ect.
(and may only work with shared libs..

[mc4man]

With the addition of 3 options in configure -
--enable-libxcb enable X11 grabbing using XCB [auto]
--enable-libxcb-shm enable X11 grabbing shm communication [auto]
--enable-libxcb-xfixes enable X11 grabbing mouse rendering [auto]
wonder if anyone has tried & to what extent should be enabled (all 3 ?
library versions should all be supported in 14.04+

[FakeOutdoorsman]

I haven't tried it yet.

I suppose it's autodetected, so you may not need to add any of those options if the deps are available: libxcb1-dev, libxcb-shm0-dev, ibxcb-xfixes0-dev.

From Nicolas George in [FFmpeg-cvslog] xcbgrab: XCB-based screen capture:

Technically, XCB is slightly lower-level but more efficient than Xlib.

From an user's point of view, whether an application uses XCB or Xlib should
not matter. This is even truer nowadays, because most users have X.org's
implementation of Xlib, which is a wrapper around XCB.

[mc4man]

I haven't tried it yet.

I suppose it's autodetected, so you may not need to add any of those options if the deps are available: libxcb1-dev, libxcb-shm0-dev, ibxcb-xfixes0-dev.

From Nicolas George in [FFmpeg-cvslog] xcbgrab: XCB-based screen capture:

The autodetect works ok, min. I guess would be libxcb1-dev. So then the previous option, --enable-x11grab, would override the auto.. if included in configure
(seems to work ok here, same runtime command, same result.

[mc4man]

So should be showing up in vivid (proposed) shortly, -
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1393522
I believe it will be semi-neutered as far as aac encoding as no 'extra' packages atm though extra only adds libvo-aacenc, faac & fdkaac are a no go in Debian
So in that regard and for having the latest self or acquired builds will still be 'soup du jour'.

Initially only benefits the FFmpeg binaries as sources would need to be specifically built off of, ex. of that in test ppa linked in report.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Interesting info, and thanks for the update and your work on this package.