Comment 1 for bug 1004174

On Do, Mai 24, 2012 at 23:01:36 (CEST), thom wrote:
> context:
> apt-get install ffmpeg results in installing avconv
> when invoking ffmpeg, avconv is started
>
> avconv is presented as a drop-in replacement for ffmpeg
> but avconv can't handle a lot of important commandline switches of
> ffmpeg

Best solution, link your application directly against libavcodec, etc.,
or adapt your scripts to avconv.

> If ubuntu insist that avconv is a ffmpeg drop-in replacement
> then i will bugreport on it as if it were ffmpeg
> therefore the buglist is extremely long (so i'll report one at a
> time).

the installed binary /usr/bin/ffmpeg is a conserved version of the
ffmpeg program at the time avconv was introduced. The version that is
available from http://ffmpeg.org has evolved, added new features and
changed existing behavior that are not supported in ubuntu.

FYI, the upcoming version of ubuntu is not going to provide a
/usr/bin/ffmpeg binary at all.

> Let's start with a REAL showstopper.
>
> try this (copied from the ffmpeg documetation):
> ffmpeg -i stereo.wav -map 0:0 -map 0:0 -map_channel 0.0.0:0.0
> -map_channel 0.0.1:0.1 -y out.ogg

What FFmpeg documentation are you referring to?

[...]

> bugfix:
> merge audiomapping back into the code or add the funcion "asplit" which
> should do the opposite of "amerge" so i can rewrite my program code
> again (which i am getting used to with every other update as a long time
> ffmpeg user, so no worries)

please see the avconv documentation for this.

> alternative bugfix:
> give me ffmpeg or ffmbc when i apt-get install ffmpeg and give me avconv
> when i apt-get install avconv

This is more complicated to implement than you might think. You are
welcome to propose concrete proposals and patches to implement this, but
be assured, packaging and providing both Libav and FFmpeg simultaneously
has been found to be unfeasible maintenance-wise.

--
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4