ffmpeg lacks ac3 support?

[falstaff]

I tried this with an AC3 encoded file:

ffmpeg -i my.ac3 -vn -acodec pcm_s16le -ac 6 -f wav out.wav

Unsupported codec (id=86020)

I downloaded the sources and recompiled with --enable-liba52. Now it works like a charm... Is it possible to enable AC3 support by default?

[John Dong (jdong)]

I believe it's disabled for legal reasons. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know what I'm talking about right now, just parroting what others have told me ;-)

[falstaff (falstaff)]

Its both in universe, the liba52 Library and the ffmpeg package....

[naught101 (naught101)]

also having this problem when decoding DVD .vob files

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

Yes, ffmpeg in ubuntu is compiled without ac3 support because liba52 is in universe. It would need to be promoted in order to enable it.

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

I have uploaded test packages to ~motumedia that load the a52 library at runtime. This would be acceptable for inclusing into ubuntu.

please test the packages from http://launchpad.net/~motumedia/+archive

and give me feedback if they work for you!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ffmpeg-debian - 3:0.svn20080206-12ubuntu2

---------------
ffmpeg-debian (3:0.svn20080206-12ubuntu2) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Replace Vcs-Svn headers with Vcs-Bzr header
  * enable libfaad support via dlopen(). LP: #6366
  * enable liba52 support via dlopen(). LP: #197133
  * add libfaad0 and liba52-0.7.4, to Suggests of libavcodec51
  * Adjust sonames used by dlopen() on liba52 and libfaad in liba52.c and
    libfaad.c

    This change has been staged in the motumedia PPA and verified by
    myself. While doing this the new patch
    51_dlopen_correct_libfaad_and_liba52_so.diff has been created.

 -- Reinhard Tartler <email address hidden> Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:56:10 +0200