Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 7.5

Chapter 41. Video Utilities

FFmpeg-2.1.3

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.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.5 platform.

Package Information

  • Download (HTTP): http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-2.1.3.tar.bz2

  • Download MD5 sum: 711b795bbc7b527c0f4a1828f324fd5a

  • Download size: 6.4 MB

  • Estimated disk space required: 107 MB (additional 710 MB for docs and 1.5 GB for tests)

  • Estimated build time: 2.3 SBU (additional 0.6 SBU for docs 12.3 to run the tests, after test files are downloaded)

FFmpeg Dependencies

Recommended

yasm-1.2.0, libass-0.10.2, fdk-aac-0.1.3, LAME-3.99.5, Opus-1.1, libtheora-1.1.1, libvorbis-1.3.4, libvpx-1.3.0, and x264-20140115-2245

Recommended for desktop use

X Window System, alsa-lib-1.0.27.2, SDL-1.2.15, libva-1.2.1 and libvdpau-0.7 (with the corresponding driver package)

Optional

FAAC-1.28, FreeType-2.5.2, OpenJPEG-1.5.1, PulseAudio-4.0, Speex-1.2rc1, XviD-1.3.2, OpenSSL-1.0.1f, Fontconfig-2.11.0, frei0r, GnuTLS-3.2.11, LADSPA, libssh, ZVBI, libaacplus, libbluray, libcaca, libcelt, libcdio, libdc1394, Flite, GSM, libiec61883, libilbc, libmodplug, libnut (Git checkout), OpenCore AMR, OpenCV, librtmp, Schroedinger, TwoLAME, Video4Linux, vo-aaenc, vo-amrwbenc, libxavs (SVN checkout), OpenAL, and texi2html (to build HTML documentation)

User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/ffmpeg

Installation of FFmpeg

Install FFmpeg by running the following commands: 

sed -i 's/-lflite"/-lflite -lasound"/' configure &&
./configure --prefix=/usr        \
            --enable-gpl         \
            --enable-version3    \
            --enable-nonfree     \
            --disable-static     \
            --enable-shared      \
            --disable-debug      \
            --enable-libass      \
            --enable-libfdk-aac  \
            --enable-libmp3lame  \
            --enable-libopus     \
            --enable-libtheora   \
            --enable-libvorbis   \
            --enable-libvpx      \
            --enable-libx264     \
            --enable-x11grab     &&
make &&
gcc tools/qt-faststart.c -o tools/qt-faststart

HTML documentation was built in the previous step if texi2html is installed. If the HTML was built (check for any .html files in the doc directory) and you have texlive-20130530 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-1.8.6 installed and wish to create the API documentation (takes about 350 MB of space), issue the command doxygen doc/Doxyfile.

To properly test the installation you must have rsync-3.1.0 installed and follow the instructions for the FFmpeg Automated Testing Environment (FATE). First, about 736 MB of data files used to run FATE are downloaded. Next, FATE is executed. Estimated values in "Package Information" do not include the download SBU.

Now, as the root user: 

make install &&
install -v -m755    tools/qt-faststart /usr/bin &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg &&
install -v -m644    doc/*.txt \
                    /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg

If HTML documentation was built, issue the following command to install it: 

install -v -m644 doc/*.html \
                 /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg

If you used doxygen to create the API documentation, install it (another 300 MB of space) by issuing the following commands as the root user: 

install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg/api &&
install -v -m644    doc/doxy/html/* \
                    /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg/api

Command Explanations

sed -i ...: This command adds the ALSA library to the Flite LDFLAGS variable and enables the discovery of Flite.

--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-libass: Enables ASS/SSA subtitle format rendering via libass.

--enable-libfdk-aac: Enables currently the highest-quality AAC audio encoding via libfdk-aac.

--enable-libmp3lame: Enables MP3 audio encoding via libmp3lame.

--enable-libopus: Enables Opus encoding for low latency streaming via libopus.

--enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora: Enables Theora video encoding via libvorbis and libtheora.

--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-x11grab: Enables X11 grabbing.

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]

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.

Configuring FFmpeg

Config Files

/etc/ffserver.conf and ~/.ffmpeg/ffserver-config

You'll find a sample ffserver configuration file at doc/ffserver.conf in the source tree.

Contents

Installed Programs: ffmpeg, ffplay, ffprobe, ffserver, and qt-faststart
Installed Libraries: libavcodec.so, libavdevice.so, libavfilter.so, libavformat.so, libavutil.so, libpostproc.so, libswresample, and libswscale.so
Installed Directories: /usr/include/libavcodec, /usr/include/libavdevice, /usr/include/libavfilter, /usr/include/libavformat, /usr/include/libavutil, /usr/include/libpostproc, /usr/include/libswresample /usr/include/libswscale, /usr/share/ffmpeg, and /usr/share/doc/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.

ffserver

is a streaming server for everything that ffmpeg could use as input (files, streams, TV card input, webcam, etc).

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.

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.

Last updated on 2014-02-25 13:04:58 -0800