This guide is based on minimal CentOS and will provide a local, non-system installation of FFmpeg with several external encoding libraries. These instructions should also work for recent Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora. This is a non-invasive guide and undoing all steps is simple and is shown at the end of this page.
Get the Dependencies
Note: The # indicates that the command should be executed as superuser or root.
Get the dependencies:
# yum install autoconf automake gcc gcc-c++ git libtool make nasm pkgconfig zlib-devel
Make a directory to put all of the source code into:
mkdir ~/ffmpeg_sources
Compilation & Installation
Note: If you do not require certain encoders you may skip the relevant section and then remove the appropriate ./configure option in FFmpeg. For example, if libvorbis is not needed, then skip that section and then remove --enable-libvorbis from the Install FFmpeg section.
Yasm
Yasm is an assembler used by x264 and FFmpeg.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
curl -O http://www.tortall.net/projects/yasm/releases/yasm-1.2.0.tar.gz
tar xzvf yasm-1.2.0.tar.gz
cd yasm-1.2.0
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --bindir="$HOME/bin"
make
make install
make distclean
. ~/.bash_profile
x264
H.264 video encoder.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
git clone --depth 1 git://git.videolan.org/x264
cd x264
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --enable-static
make
make install
make distclean
libfdk_aac
AAC audio encoder.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
git clone --depth 1 git://github.com/mstorsjo/fdk-aac.git
cd fdk-aac
autoreconf -fiv
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared
make
make install
make distclean
libmp3lame
MP3 audio encoder.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
curl -L -O http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/lame/lame/3.99/lame-3.99.5.tar.gz
tar xzvf lame-3.99.5.tar.gz
cd lame-3.99.5
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --disable-shared --enable-nasm
make
make install
make distclean
libopus
Opus audio decoder and encoder.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
curl -O http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/opus/opus-1.0.3.tar.gz
tar xzvf opus-1.0.3.tar.gz
cd opus-1.0.3
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared
make
make install
make distclean
libogg
Ogg bitstream library. Required by libtheora and libvorbis.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
curl -O http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/ogg/libogg-1.3.1.tar.gz
tar xzvf libogg-1.3.1.tar.gz
cd libogg-1.3.1
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared
make
make install
make distclean
libvorbis
Vorbis audio encoder. Requires
libogg.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
curl -O http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/vorbis/libvorbis-1.3.3.tar.gz
tar xzvf libvorbis-1.3.3.tar.gz
cd libvorbis-1.3.3
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --with-ogg="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared
make
make install
make distclean
libvpx
VP8/VP9 video encoder.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
git clone --depth 1 http://git.chromium.org/webm/libvpx.git
cd libvpx
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-examples
make
make install
make clean
FFmpeg
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
git clone --depth 1 git://source.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg
PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib/pkgconfig"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --extra-cflags="-I$HOME/ffmpeg_build/include" --extra-ldflags="-L$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --extra-libs="-ldl" --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libfdk_aac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264
make
make install
make distclean
hash -r
. ~/.bash_profile
Compilation is now complete and ffmpeg (also ffprobe, ffserver, lame, and x264) should now be ready to use. The rest of this guide shows how to update or remove FFmpeg.
Note: Keep the ffmpeg_sources directory and all contents if you intend to update or uninstall as shown below.
Additional Libraries
Other libraries codecs that you may require (but probably do not). These must be installed before you compile ffmpeg.
libfreetype
Font rendering library. Required for the
drawtext video filter.
# yum install freetype-devel
Add --enable-libfreetype to your ffmpeg ./configure.
libspeex
Speex audio decoder and encoder.
# yum install speex-devel
Add --enable-libspeex to your ffmpeg ./configure.
libtheora
Theora video encoder. Requires
libogg.
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
curl -O http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/theora/libtheora-1.1.1.tar.gz
tar xzvf libtheora-1.1.1.tar.gz
cd libtheora-1.1.1
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --with-ogg="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-examples --disable-shared --disable-sdltest --disable-vorbistest
make
make install
make distclean
Add --enable-libtheora to your ffmpeg ./configure.
Updating
Development of FFmpeg is active and an occasional update can give you new features and bug fixes. First, remove the old files and then update the dependencies:
rm -rf ~/ffmpeg_build ~/bin/{ffmpeg,ffprobe,ffserver,lame,vsyasm,x264,yasm,ytasm}
# yum install autoconf automake gcc gcc-c++ git libtool make nasm pkgconfig zlib-devel
Update x264
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources/x264
make distclean
git pull
Then run
./configure,
make, and
make install as shown in the
Install x264 section.
Update libfdk_aac
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources/libfdk_aac
make distclean
git pull
Update libvpx
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources/libvpx
make clean
git pull
Then run
./configure,
make, and
make install as shown in the
Install libvpx section.
Update FFmpeg
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources/ffmpeg
make distclean
git pull
Then run
./configure,
make, and
make install as shown in the
Install FFmpeg section.
Reverting changes made by this guide
rm -rf ~/ffmpeg_build ~/ffmpeg_sources ~/bin/{ffmpeg,ffprobe,ffserver,lame,vsyasm,x264,yasm,ytasm}
# yum erase autoconf automake gcc gcc-c++ git libtool make nasm pkgconfig zlib-devel
hash -r
