ffmpeg should be installable from apt with x264/h264 support without users needing to recompile it

[Rory McCann]

Binary package hint: ffmpeg

I believe the current version of ffmpeg and x264 in apt are missing a feature. Users are frequently advised to recompile ffmpeg & x264 from source if they want some features. There is even a popular guide on ubuntu forums for recompiling the software (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=786095). Users on the ffmpeg mailing list are pointed to this. The ubuntu wiki contains guides on how to 'fix' ffmpeg (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/iPodVideoEncoding#Fixing ffmpeg on Ubuntu)

If a guide starts with "First remove the packages from apt, then recompile", then there is something wrong with the packages in apt.

Both ffmpeg and x264 are packaged in ubuntu (http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=x264 and http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=ffmpeg). Is there not some way to make a package that users can install instead of requiring them to recompile software?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: ffmpeg 4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.41-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Sep 1 11:20:47 2010
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_IE.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ffmpeg

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

the correct fix is to install the package 'ubuntu-restricted-extras', which will install 'libavcodec-extra-52' as dependency. This package is linked against libx264 and therefore capable to encode to h264.

[Rory McCann (rorymcc)]

I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package, as you suggested, and I still have the same problem. I followed the ubuntu forums guide to recompile ffmpeg & x264 and that worked.

For the record the command I am trying to do:

ffmpeg -i './file.vob' -f mpegts -acodec libmp3lame -ar 48000 -ab 64000 -vcodec x264 -b 800000 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -subq 5 -trellis 1 -refs 1 -coder 0 -me_range 16 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -bt 200k -maxrate 800000 -bufsize 800000 -rc_eq 'blurCplx^(1-qComp)' -qcomp 0.6 -qmin 10 -qmax 51 -qdiff 4 -level 30 -aspect 320:240 -g 30 -async 2 test.ts

and the (failing) output is:

FFmpeg version SVN-r24342, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Jul 20 2010 09:23:37 with gcc 4.4.1
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --enable-pthreads --enable-shared --extra-cflags=-fPIC --enable-gpl
  libavutil 50.22. 0 / 50.22. 0
  libavcodec 52.84. 0 / 52.84. 0
  libavformat 52.75. 0 / 52.75. 0
  libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
  libavfilter 1.25. 1 / 1.25. 1
  libswscale 0.11. 0 / 0.11. 0
Input #0, mpeg, from './Lucozade - Dawn of the De-ad.vob':
  Duration: 00:00:39.53, start: 137.786967, bitrate: 8491 kb/s
    Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 8:9 DAR 4:3], 7000 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Stream #0.1[0xa0]: Audio: pcm_s16be, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1536 kb/s
Unknown encoder 'x264'

I have tried the above command with "-vcodec libx264", "-vcodec h264" and "-vcodec libh264", all give the same error.

I am trying to make some files for HTTP Streaming as suggested here: http://www.ioncannon.net/programming/452/iphone-http-streaming-with-ffmpeg-and-an-open-source-segmenter/

In other words, installing ubuntu-restricted-extras does not fix the problem, removing the package and recompiling does fix the problem

[Rory McCann (rorymcc)]

The version of libavcodec-extra-52 is "4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu3". I reported this bug on my lucid desktop (so I could use ubuntu-bug), however the server doing the encoding is karmic. ('ubuntu-restricted-extra' is at version 36).