ffmpeg replaced by avconv (libav-tools)

[Alan Pater]

Installing RS on a new Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server I see that the package ffmpeg is no longer available. A bit of research showed that it has been replaced by the ibav-tools package. that package does not contain a ffmpeg binary, but on called avconv.

As far as I can tell, they have the same functions, just to name of the binary has changed. This means that RS does not see it.

What changes are needed to allow RS to see this new version?

[Jeff Nova]

This is not what happened. FFmpeg is still very strong!  It was a fork:

http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html

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Jeff Nova

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jn...@colorhythm.com

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[Jeff Nova]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9477115/who-can-tell-me-the-difference-and-relation-between-ffmpeg-libav-and-avconv

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Jeff Nova

Chief Executive Officer

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Mobile:  +1 510-710-9590

jn...@colorhythm.com

On Feb 18, 2014, at 6:18 PM, Alan Pater <alan....@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Tom Gleason]

Alan,

How is the 14.04 system generally? Usable desktop? I'll upgrade and check it out if so.

If it's a fork, it may be fairly simple if the command line API hasn't changed much. Try changing around line 3510 of include/general.php:

        case "ffmpeg":
            if (!isset($ffmpeg_path)) {return false;} # FFmpeg path not configured.
            return get_executable_path($ffmpeg_path, array("unix"=>"ffmpeg", "win"=>"ffmpeg.exe"), $checked_path);
            break;

to:

        case "ffmpeg":
            if (!isset($ffmpeg_path)) {return false;} # FFmpeg path not configured.
            return get_executable_path($ffmpeg_path, array("unix"=>"avconv", "win"=>"ffmpeg.exe"), $checked_path);
            break;

Tom

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Tom Gleason

Colorhythm LLC
http://www.colorhythm.com

Main Office:  +1 415-399-9921
Fax: +1 415-399-9928

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[Alan Pater]

Tom, 14.04 works for me, quite useable. But on my poor, old, dying laptop I am running the lubuntu desktop rather then the full Unity.

You do run into a few things, like certain packages being depreciated. ;-) But that is why I am running it now, to find these things out ahead of time and get any needed fixes in.

I haven't looked into any API changes between ffmpeg and avconv, but assuming there are none, a quick "ln -s avconv ffmpeg" does the trick as well. I'll test it when I actually get RS running on this system. (It doesn't like my mysql installation, but that is another conversation.)

Regarding the politics of the fork, I don't have an opinion. From a purely pragmatic point of view, if Debian/Ubuntu are not shipping an ffmpeg binary, then I would prefer to configure things to like avconv. An "ln -s" hack is ugly and unmaintainable.

Cheers,
Alan

[Alan Pater]

Looks like my ugly hack (ln -s avconv ffmpeg) just sneaks by the initial check. If I re-check, I see the following:

FAIL:
Unexpected output when executing '/usr/bin/ffmpeg' -version command. Output was 'avconv 9.10-6:9.10-1ubuntu7 libavutil 52. 3. 0 / 52. 3. 0 libavcodec 54. 35. 0 / 54. 35. 0 libavformat 54. 20. 3 / 54. 20. 3 libavdevice 53. 2. 0 / 53. 2. 0 libavfilter 3. 3. 0 / 3. 3. 0 libavresample 1. 0. 1 / 1. 0. 1 libswscale 2. 1. 1 / 2. 1. 1'.

[Tom Gleason]

Do video previews not work? That's just a version check issue that will need to be fixed in check.php

--

[Alan Pater]

True enough, video thumbnails and previews are created by avconv.

Next step is, I guess, to make a clean hack to allow either ffmpeg or avconv to pass muster.

[Tom Gleason]

Perhaps an $ffmpeg_binary config that can be used in the general.php line I described earlier in the thread, unless or until the API changes.

[Dan Huby]

The previous ffmpeg package on Ubuntu was just avconv with a dummy 'ffmpeg' binary for compatibility - and with 14.04 that's now been removed. So most people on Ubuntu have been using libav/avconv for a while anyway.

I've just committed r5515 which supports both ffmpeg and avconv binaries, so for 14.04 you just need to make sure the "libav-tools" package is installed and RS will work as normal.

We're updating the instructions on the wiki.

Dan

[Jason Koo]

Hi Dan,

So now if we run a fresh installation, and hit the set up page, do we need to fill in the "FFMpeg Path" or just to leave it blank?

PS: I already have libav-tools package installed.

[Jethro Dew]

Hi Jason,

That path relates to your video editing tool of choice. Point it at your libav executable folder to make it work with libav instead of ffmpeg. I am going to change the comment to make this more clear.

Kind Regards

Jethro