HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264

[andrew.46]

Hi liquidox,

Originally Posted by liquidox Coincidentally I can't get mplayer to compile with x264 support either

Just a small point: MPlayer does not require x264 to run successfully and play back h264 media files. However x264 is required by MEncoder to create h264 media. I presume you need MEncoder as well as MPlayer?

Andrew

[liquidox]

Originally Posted by andrew.46 Hi liquidox, Just a small point: MPlayer does not require x264 to run successfully and play back h264 media files. However x264 is required by MEncoder to create h264 media. I presume you need MEncoder as well as MPlayer? Andrew

Yea I meant the compilation of mencoder, it just wont find h264, neither does ffmpeg now, so I'm thinking it's possibly a Mythbuntu problem?

Just wondering if anyone with Mythbuntu 9.10 has gotten this to work, maybe I should ask in that subforum as well or instead.

[osced]

Originally Posted by FakeOutdoorsman More information would be useful. When do you get this error? What version of Ubuntu are you using?

Oh Sorry I forgot to put more info in my post, but I tried again today and it worked this time..it was probably something I did wrong yesterday

/Osced

[Bachstelze]

Originally Posted by andrew.46 Hi liquidox, Just a small point: MPlayer does not require x264 to run successfully and play back h264 media files. However x264 is required by MEncoder to create h264 media. I presume you need MEncoder as well as MPlayer? Andrew

Actually, it is not. libavcodec has a builtin version of libx264, and mencoder uses that by default, so a separate installation of x264 is not required.

[andrew.46]

Hi Bachstelze,

Originally Posted by Bachstelze Actually, it is not. libavcodec has a builtin version of libx264, and mencoder uses that by default, so a separate installation of x264 is not required.

My apologies I was not aware of this...

Andrew

[Nepherte]

Originally Posted by andrew.46 Hi Bachstelze, My apologies I was not aware of this... Andrew

If you want to use the external x264, you need to use the --disable-x264-lavc flag, as stated in ./configure --help

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Originally Posted by osced Oh Sorry I forgot to put more info in my post, but I tried again today and it worked this time..it was probably something I did wrong yesterday /Osced

You might be jumping to conclusions if you blame yourself. Most likely is was a change in x264 that FFmpeg needed to catch up with, but this is a guess. I haven't been keeping up with the changes much in the last week. Errors when compiling SVN FFmpeg occur every once in a while, but are usually fixed within a day or two.

[andrew.46]

Hi Bachstelze,

Originally Posted by Bachstelze libavcodec has a builtin version of libx264, and mencoder uses that by default, so a separate installation of x264 is not required.

Just for my own edification I have built MPlayer and MEncoder in the complete absence of any external x264 libraries. On my system this resulted in a failure to build x264 encoding support for MEncoder while still successfully compiling both MPlayer and MEncoder. Can you duplicate this result or is it an anomaly on my system?

All the best,

Andrew

[Bachstelze]

Originally Posted by andrew.46 Hi Bachstelze, Just for my own edification I have built MPlayer and MEncoder in the complete absence of any external x264 libraries. On my system this resulted in a failure to build x264 encoding support for MEncoder while still successfully compiling both MPlayer and MEncoder. Can you duplicate this result or is it an anomaly on my system? All the best, Andrew

My mistake, I spoke a bit too fast. Even building x264 support in libavcodec requires the x264 headers. I wonder what difference it makes, then. I'll investigate that.

[mc4man]

If you were to build a static x264 and then build mplayer/mencoder off of it (w/ x264 enabled) then once it's built, encoding is 'built-in'. You could then remove your x264 build, (.h, .a, .pc, x264) and mencoder would still encode.

If you built x264 with --enabled-shared and mplayer/mencoder off of the headers then you'd need the corresponding libx264-XX present for encoding ( or mplayer/mencoder to run at all