Introduction to FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a solution to record,
convert and stream audio and video. It is a very fast video and
audio converter and it can also acquire from a live audio/video
source. Designed to be intuitive, the command-line interface
(ffmpeg) tries to
figure out all the parameters, when possible. FFmpeg can also convert from any sample rate
to any other, and resize video on the fly with a high quality
polyphase filter. FFmpeg can use a
Video4Linux compatible video source and any Open Sound System audio
source.
Note
Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages
properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated since the most
recent stable versions of the books.
Package Information
-
Download (HTTP): https://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-7.1.tar.xz
-
Download MD5 sum: 623aa63a72139a82ccb99cd6ee477b94
-
Download size: 11 MB
-
Estimated disk space required: 205 MB (add 1.5 GB for the
FATE suite/tests, add 869 MB for documentation)
-
Estimated build time: 1.2 SBU (using parallelism=4; add 3.2
SBU (with THREADS=4) to run the FATE suite after sample files
are downloaded; add 0.2 SBU for doxygen docs)
Additional Downloads
FFmpeg Dependencies
Recommended
libaom-3.9.1, libass-0.17.3, fdk-aac-2.0.3, FreeType-2.13.3, LAME-3.100, libvorbis-1.3.7,
libvpx-1.14.1, Opus-1.5.2, x264-20240812, x265-3.6, and NASM-2.16.03
or yasm-1.3.0
Recommended for desktop use
alsa-lib-1.2.12, libva-2.22.0, SDL2-2.30.7
Recommended for systems with Intel Video
libvdpau-1.5 and libvdpau-va-gl-0.4.2
Optional
Doxygen-1.12.0, Fontconfig-2.15.0, FriBidi-1.0.16, frei0r-plugins-1.8.0, libcdio-2.1.0 (to
identify and play CDs), libdrm-2.4.123 (for “kmsgrab” input),
libjxl-0.11.0, libwebp-1.4.0,
opencv-4.10.0, OpenJPEG-2.5.2, GnuTLS-3.8.7.1,
PulseAudio-17.0, Samba-4.21.0,
Speex-1.2.1, texlive-20240312 (or install-tl-unx) for PDF and PS documentation,
v4l-utils-1.28.1, Vulkan-Loader-1.3.296, XviD-1.3.7, a graphical
environment, dav1d, Flite,
GSM,
libaacplus, libbluray,
libcaca, libcelt, libdc1394,
libdca,
libiec61883,
libilbc, libmodplug,
libnut (Git checkout),
librtmp,
libssh,
libtheora,
OpenAL, OpenCore AMR,
Srt,
Schroedinger,
TwoLAME,
vo-aaenc,
vo-amrwbenc,
and ZVBI
Installation of FFmpeg
First, apply a patch that adds an API necessary for some packages
to build:
patch -Np1 -i ../ffmpeg-7.1-chromium_method-1.patch
Install FFmpeg by running the
following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--enable-gpl \
--enable-version3 \
--enable-nonfree \
--disable-static \
--enable-shared \
--disable-debug \
--enable-libaom \
--enable-libass \
--enable-libfdk-aac \
--enable-libfreetype \
--enable-libmp3lame \
--enable-libopus \
--enable-libvorbis \
--enable-libvpx \
--enable-libx264 \
--enable-libx265 \
--enable-openssl \
--ignore-tests=enhanced-flv-av1 \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1 &&
make &&
gcc tools/qt-faststart.c -o tools/qt-faststart
HTML documentation was built in the previous step. If you have
texlive-20240312 installed and wish
to build PDF and Postscript versions of the documentation, issue
the following commands:
pushd doc &&
for DOCNAME in `basename -s .html *.html`
do
texi2pdf -b $DOCNAME.texi &&
texi2dvi -b $DOCNAME.texi &&
dvips -o $DOCNAME.ps \
$DOCNAME.dvi
done &&
popd &&
unset DOCNAME
If you have Doxygen-1.12.0 installed and you wish to build
(if --disable-doc was used) or rebuild the html documentation,
issue:
doxygen doc/Doxyfile
The fate-suite tests include comparisons with installed files, and
should not be run before the package is installed. Therefore, if
you desire to run them, instructions are given further below.
Now, as the root
user:
make install &&
install -v -m755 tools/qt-faststart /usr/bin &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1 &&
install -v -m644 doc/*.txt /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1
If the PDF and Postscript documentation was built, issue the
following commands, as the root
user, to install them:
install -v -m644 doc/*.pdf /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1 &&
install -v -m644 doc/*.ps /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1
If you used doxygen
to manually create the API documentation, install it by issuing the
following commands as the root
user:
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1/api &&
cp -vr doc/doxy/html/* /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1/api &&
find /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1/api -type f -exec chmod -c 0644 \{} \; &&
find /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1/api -type d -exec chmod -c 0755 \{} \;
To properly test the installation you must have rsync-3.3.0
installed and follow the instructions for the FFmpeg Automated Testing
Environment (FATE). First, about 1 GB of sample files used to
run FATE are downloaded with the command:
make fate-rsync SAMPLES=fate-suite/
The fate-suite
directory is created
and the files are downloaded there. That command actually runs an
rsync command to obtain the sample files. You may want to compress
and keep this directory for testing again, for testing in another
system, or for when a new version of ffmpeg is released. Then,
unpack the sample files in the source directory, and run the
make fate-rsync ...
command above to sync with the upstream repository. The download
size and time are drastically reduced by doing this. Estimated
values in "Package Information" do not include the download SBU.
Some samples may have been removed in newer versions, so in order
to be sure local and server fate samples are identical when you use
previously saved samples, run the following command:
rsync -vrltLW --delete --timeout=60 --contimeout=60 \
rsync://fate-suite.ffmpeg.org/fate-suite/ fate-suite/
Next, execute FATE with the following commands (there are more than
3800 tests in the suite):
make fate THREADS=N
SAMPLES=fate-suite/ | tee ../fate.log &&
grep ^TEST ../fate.log | wc -l
where N
is an integer,
N
≤ number of cores in
the system.
A successful run should return no errors or warnings, just a list
of tests and total amount at the end.
Command Explanations
find ... ;: Fixes
permissions of documentation files and directories.
--enable-libfreetype
:
Enables Freetype support.
--enable-gpl
: Enables the
use of GPL code and permits support for postprocessing, swscale and
many other features.
--enable-version3
: Enables
the use of (L)GPL version 3 code.
--enable-nonfree
: Enables
the use of nonfree code. Note that the resulting libraries and
binaries will be unredistributable.
--disable-static
: This
switch prevents installation of static versions of the libraries.
--enable-shared
: Enables
building shared libraries, otherwise only static libraries are
built and installed.
--disable-debug
: Disables
building debugging symbols into the programs and libraries.
--enable-libaom
: Enables
AV1 audio and video decoding via libaom
.
--enable-libass
: Enables
ASS/SSA subtitle format rendering via libass
.
--enable-libdrm
: Use this switch if
libdrm-2.4.123 is installed to build the
“kmsgrab”
input module which is useful for screen capturing or streaming.
--enable-libfdk-aac
:
Enables AAC audio encoding via libfdk-aac
.
--enable-libmp3lame
:
Enables MP3 audio encoding via libmp3lame
.
--enable-libvorbis
--enable-libvpx
: Enables
WebM encoding via libvorbis
and
libvpx
.
--enable-libx264
: Enables
high-quality H.264/MPEG-4 AVC encoding via libx264
.
--enable-libx265
: Enables
high-quality H.265/HEVC encoding via libx265
.
--enable-openssl
: Enables
HTTPS protocol for network streams.
--ignore-tests=...
:
Disables tests that fail to run on BLFS without the optional
packages. Currently the AV1 test is disabled as it needs dav1d to
do AV1 decoding on the CPU. The test might work if you have a GPU
that can decode AV1, but this was not tested.
--enable-gnutls
: Use this option
instead of --enable-openssl
, if you want to use
GnuTLS instead of OpenSSL for HTTPS protocol.
--disable-doc
: Disables building html
documentation. This is only needed if Doxygen-1.12.0
is installed and you do not want to build the html documentation.
--enable-libpulse
: Enables support for
Pulseaudio for audio output.
gcc tools/qt-faststart.c -o
tools/qt-faststart: This builds the qt-faststart program which can
modify QuickTime formatted movies (.mov
or .mp4
) so
that the header information is located at the beginning of the file
instead of the end. This allows the movie file to begin playing
before the entire file has been downloaded.
Note
Support for most of the dependency packages requires using
options passed to the configure script. View the
output from ./configure
--help for complete information about enabling
dependency packages.
Contents
Installed Programs:
ffmpeg, ffplay, ffprobe, and
qt-faststart
Installed Libraries:
libavcodec.so, libavdevice.so,
libavfilter.so, libavformat.so, libavutil.so, libpostproc.so,
libswresample.so, and libswscale.so
Installed Directories:
/usr/include/libav{codec,device,filter,format,util},
/usr/include/libpostproc, /usr/include/libsw{resample,scale},
/usr/share/doc/ffmpeg-7.1, and /usr/share/ffmpeg
Short Descriptions
ffmpeg
|
is a command-line tool to convert video files, network
streams and input from a TV card to several video formats
|
ffplay
|
is a very simple and portable media player using the
ffmpeg libraries and the
SDL library
|
ffprobe
|
gathers information from multimedia streams and prints it
in a human and machine-readable fashion
|
qt-faststart
|
moves the index file to the front of quicktime (mov/mp4)
videos
|
libavcodec.so
|
is a library containing the FFmpeg codecs (both encoding and
decoding)
|
libavdevice.so
|
is the FFmpeg device
handling library
|
libavfilter.so
|
is a library of filters that can alter video or audio
between the decoder and the encoder (or output)
|
libavformat.so
|
is a library containing the file formats handling (mux
and demux code for several formats) used by ffplay as well as
allowing the generation of audio or video streams
|
libavresample.so
|
is a library containing functions for resampling audio
and video.
|
libavutil.so
|
is the FFmpeg utility
library
|
libpostproc.so
|
is the FFmpeg post
processing library
|
libswresample.so
|
is the FFmpeg audio
rescaling library, it contains functions for converting
audio sample formats
|
libswscale.so
|
is the FFmpeg image
rescaling library
|