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  • Compression Techniques

    SIMPLE FFMpeg OSX Installation

    Posted by Michael Rampe on March 23, 2010 at 8:01 am

    The following is for anyone wanting to install FFMpeg onto a 10.5.x or 10.6.x OSX box (should work for Tiger as well but not tested)

    NOTE: Internet connection required.

    STEP 1: Install Xcode (Apple developer tools)
    https://connect.apple.com/
    version 3.2.1 or later for Snow Leopard, 3.1.4 or later for Leopard.
    You will have to join the Apple Developer Program which is free on the web. This will be a 700-900MB download and contain a usual apple installer package.

    STEP 2: Install Macports 1.8.2
    https://www.macports.org/install.php
    There is a separate version of Macports 1.8.2 for Snow Leopard, Leopard and Tiger… make sure you get the right one. This will be a tiny download and contain a usual apple installer package.

    STEP 3: Open the Terminal application found in your utilities folder.
    Once logged in, type the following into the terminal and hit return:

    sudo port install ffmpeg

    You will be prompted for your password. Enter your password and hit return. Sit back and relax as it will take a while for Macports to download, compile and install all of the required dependencies of FFMpeg and FFmpeg itself. This can take an hour or two even with a fast internet connection.

    When it is finished, type:

    ffmpeg

    …and hit return. It should list the currently installed version as well as your configure settings.

    Type: man ffmpeg
    …for the manual
    Type: ffmpeg -codecs
    …for a list of available codecs
    Type: ffmpeg -formats
    …for a list of available containers

    That’s it, your done installing FFMpeg the easy way with a broader range of codecs usually available on the mac without paid software.

    Basic usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]… {[outfile options] outfile}…

    For example:
    ffmpeg -i inputfile.mov -vcodec libx264 -vpre libx264-hq -b 1500k -acodec libmp3lame -ab 192k -f mp4 outputfile.mp4

    Up until now, I have been installing and compiling ffmpeg and it’s dependent libraries the hard way. This involves finding the source codes or grabbing them from git or svn and configuring, compiling and installing yourself with the terminal command line shell. The good thing about this approach is that git and svn usually give you the latest developer version, not the last stable version (0.5.1) which the above method installs.

    Happy encoding, decoding and wrapping.

    Michael

    Michael Soth replied 13 years, 3 months ago 5 Members · 10 Replies
  • 10 Replies

  • Michael Rampe

    March 24, 2010 at 4:57 am

    [Michael Rampe] “Type: ffmpeg -codecs
    …for a list of available codecs
    Type: ffmpeg -formats
    …for a list of available containers”

    Type ffmpeg -formats
    …for a list of available codecs AND containers.

    The -codecs command works in more current revisions only.

  • Bett Bee

    September 6, 2010 at 10:39 am

    Worked like a charm. Thanks.

  • Kris A. wotipka

    September 12, 2010 at 6:50 am

    Does this allow the use of AAC and AAD codecs as well as installing LAME?

    kris@wotipka.com
    Image maker

  • Michael Rampe

    September 14, 2010 at 8:09 am

    It should do. It installs as many dependencies as it can from my experience.

    This was written for 0.5.1 so give it a go on 0.6 and let me know.

    Michael

    “half-way to world domination A.K.A. the belligerent blue bike shed”

  • Derek Winnicki

    March 19, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    I installed FFMpeg successfully with this method but Im trying to compile a program that needs libavformat, do you know which directory macports puts in?

  • Michael Rampe

    March 19, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    [derek winnicki] “I installed FFMpeg successfully with this method but Im trying to compile a program that needs libavformat, do you know which directory macports puts in?”

    For me it goes to:
    /opt/local/var/macports/software/ffmpeg/….

    Michael

  • Derek Winnicki

    March 20, 2011 at 12:51 am

    Thanks, I did find it there. Inside the libavformat folder I only find two files, avformat.h and avio.h.
    Is yours the same? Even when I set the path to avformat.h in the makefile of the program I’m trying to compile it still says it can’t find libavformat. 🙁 . Thanks for the help though, at least now I know where it is.

  • Michael Rampe

    March 20, 2011 at 2:11 am

    The distribution should be in /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/ffmpeg/

    You can build that yourself.

    Why not just grab the latest git repository without macports?

    Michael

  • Derek Winnicki

    March 21, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    I tried building it before and it was hard to do on snow leopard, I was even following tutorials specifically for snow leopard and it didn’t really work I think because I was building more recent versions than the tutorials did but because I can’t seem to compile this program with the macports install I think I’m going to try and build it again myself.

  • Michael Soth

    January 23, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    Hi Michael, thanks for that post, and sorry to bother you, but I followed instructions and could not make it work. It’s now 2013, so maybe some things are out of date?
    I’m running Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I did download XCode, the correct Snow Leopard version of MacPorts, and when in Terminal, I got error message: sudo: port: command not found.
    Any help you can give? Thanks so much.
    Michael

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