HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[klein de usa]

thank you FakeOutdoorsman

i figured that out, i did my research and read everything twice though i'd be smart and make the web page a .pdf file with firefox. so print to .pdf in firefox doesn't make a perfect .pdf file, lesson learned.

[sudhakarRedi]

I tried using both nasm and yasm from the repos, and x264 would compile but it would say it was building without support for yasm and nasm.

Then, when I used it to convert a file it would say that it was using no cpu extensions, as opposed to saying "MMX SSE ...". It would also take significantly longer (like 2-5 times as long).

But just installing the yasm from source fixed it, and it wasn't very difficult to do.

when I try to enable yasm in ffmpeg it is giving me an error that "yasm not found" how can I solve this problem..? Any one please suggest me

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Did you install yasm first?

[Jesua]

Good guide..

This guide has been moved to the official FFmpeg wiki:

How to Compile FFmpeg and x264 on Ubuntu

The guide will be kept up to date and all supported Ubuntu versions will be included.

[heyup]

Using the guide I got installation errors installing fdk-acc and ffmpeg sections; the other sections installed OK.

fdk-acc and ffmpeg folders appear in /home directory, but are not shown as installed in Synaptic.

I'm using 12.04 (Precise) Classic No Effects.

Error installing fdk-acc

richard@base-desktop:~/fdk-aac$ autoreconf -fiv
autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal -I m4 --output=aclocal.m4t
Can't exec "aclocal": No such file or directory at /usr/share/autoconf/Autom4te/FileUtils.pm line 326.
autoreconf: failed to run aclocal: No such file or directory
richard@base-desktop:~/fdk-aac$ ./configure --disable-shared
bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
richard@base-desktop:~/fdk-aac$ make
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
richard@base-desktop:~/fdk-aac$ sudo checkinstall --pkgname=fdk-aac --pkgversion="$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)-git" --backup=no \
> --deldoc=yes --fstrans=no --default

Installation results
make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.

**** Installation failed. Aborting package creation.

Error installing ffmpeg

richard@base-desktop:~/ffmpeg$ ./configure --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfaac --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libmp3lame \
> --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-librtmp --enable-libtheora \
> --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-x11grab --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-version3
ERROR: libfdk_aac not found

If you think configure made a mistake, make sure you are using the latest
version from Git. If the latest version fails, report the problem to the
ffmpeg-user@ffmpeg.org mailing list or IRC #ffmpeg on irc.freenode.net.
Include the log file "config.log" produced by configure as this will help
solving the problem.
richard@base-desktop:~/ffmpeg$ make
Makefile:2: config.mak: No such file or directory
Makefile:49: /common.mak: No such file or directory
Makefile:92: /libavutil/Makefile: No such file or directory
Makefile:92: /library.mak: No such file or directory
Makefile:178: /doc/Makefile: No such file or directory
Makefile:179: /tests/Makefile: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `/tests/Makefile'. Stop.
richard@base-desktop:~/ffmpeg$ sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion="7:$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)-git" --backup=no \
> --deldoc=yes --fstrans=no --default

Installation results
Makefile:2: config.mak: No such file or directory
Makefile:49: /common.mak: No such file or directory
Makefile:92: /libavutil/Makefile: No such file or directory
Makefile:92: /library.mak: No such file or directory
Makefile:178: /doc/Makefile: No such file or directory
Makefile:179: /tests/Makefile: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `/tests/Makefile'. Stop.

**** Installation failed. Aborting package creation.

Can you help fix this.

As aside, it would helpful to beginners if you added instructions to the guide to show how to install source snapshot tar.bz2 files.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Can't exec "aclocal": No such file or directory at /usr/share/autoconf/Autom4te/FileUtils.pm line 326.
autoreconf: failed to run aclocal: No such file or directory

That's strange. Installation of autoconf should have installed automake which should have installed aclocal. Are you sure autoconf and automake are installed?

$ dpkg -s automake | grep Status
Status: install ok installed
$ dpkg -s autoconf | grep Status
Status: install ok installed

As aside, it would helpful to beginners if you added instructions to the guide to show how to install source snapshot tar.bz2 files.

I'll keep this in mind. Is git just too annoying to use? I'm planning on changing the guides so they no longer perform any system installation, so changes will be coming...eventually.

[heyup]

That's strange. Installation of autoconf should have installed automake which should have installed aclocal. Are you sure autoconf and automake are installed?

autoconf was installed, but automake wasn't.

I'm using a custom build of Precise desktop; automake wasn't installed by default, and I had disabled 'consider recommended packages as dependencies' in Synaptic settings (to avoid unnecessary bloat).

In Synaptic autoconf lists automake as a recommendeded package not a dependency of autoconf, so automake wasn't installed!

No errors after installing automake.

Is git just too annoying to use? I'm planning on changing the guides so they no longer perform any system installation, so changes will be coming...eventually.

No problem with using git. I just thought that it might useful to include instructions on how to install a snapshot.

Great guide. Thanks for your help solving this problem.

[tL0z]

Hey guys,

I have installed everything successfully, but kdenlive does not detect the new codecs.

How do I get kdenlive to work with the new codecs?

Thank you!

[tL0z]

Anyone?!

[qyot27]

Case 1: kdenlive uses shared libs (which is the most likely scenario).
Solution: Build FFmpeg as shared; this guide builds it as static. May also require installing to /usr rather than /usr/local, but I'm not sure on how that's handled.

Case 2: kdenlive uses static libs.
Solution: Recompile kdenlive so it sees/uses the new static libs.