FFmpeg: Steps to install FFmpeg

What is FFmpeg?

To trans code your videos locally on your server, Open Package Video uses FFmpeg. This is free software, like Drupal.If you are using the trans coder at open package.biz, then you do not require FFmpeg. It is a program which record, convert and stream digital audio and video in various formats. It is a command line tool that is composed of a collection of open source(free) software’s and open source libraries. FFmpeg includes libavcodec, an audio and video codec library used by many other projects, and libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library. The name of this FFmpeg comes from the MPEG video standards group, together with “FF” for “fast forward”. FFmpeg was started by Fabrice Bellard and is now maintained by Michael Niedermayer. Many FFmpeg developers also part of the MPlayer project, and FFmpeg is hosted at the MPlayer project server.

It is developed under Linux, but it can’t compiled under many OS, including Windows etc. There are no releases. Instead, FFmpeg developers recommend using the latest Subversion snapshot as development attempts to maintain a stable trunk. FFmpeg released under the GNU Lesser General Public License or GNU General Public License it depends on which sub-libraries one would include.It is an open source software.

There are two video codecs invented in the FFmpeg project during its development. It is the lossless FFV1 and the only nearly complete lossless or lossy working Snow codec based on wavelet transformations and an intelligent version of range encoding.

How can I install FFmpeg on our Server?

1. First you will need to check that it supports the codecs you require. The FFmpeg packaged with your distro may have poor codec support .
2. To ensure you have all the codecs you require we suggest you to compile the latest version of FFmpeg.
3. Now you will need subversion installed. Use your distro’s package manager to install it. Then checkout FFmpeg from its repository:
   svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
   cd ffmpeg
4. However, it may detect that you do not have all the required libraries in place. In this case, either install them with your distro’s package manager or remove them from the configure command.
   

   ./configure –prefix=/usr –enable-static –enable-shared –enable-gpl –enable-nonfree –enable-postproc –enable-swscale –enable-liba52 –enable-libamr-nb –enable-libamr-wb –enable-libfaac –enable-libfaad –enable-libgsm –enable-libmp3lame –enable-libx264 –disable-ffserver –disable-ffplay –disable-debug –disable-network –disable-devices

5. After that you will need to build FFmpeg and install it.