How to install and use FFMPEG on Ubuntu

FFMPEG is a collection of software libraries that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats.

In this tutorial I will show you how to install FFMPEG and how to use FFMPEG to convert your videos on Ubuntu.

1. Run the following code in terminal:

2. sudo apt-get build-dep ffmpeg

3. sudo apt-get install liblame-dev libfaad2-dev libfaac-dev libxvidcore4-dev liba52-0.7.4 liba52-0.7.4-dev libdts-dev

4. apt-get source ffmpeg

5. Then we are going to go inside the ffmpeg folder and configure and make it.

6. In terminal type the following:

7. ./configure –enable-gpl –enable-pp –enable-libvorbis –enable-libogg –enable-liba52 –enable-libdts –enable-dc1394 –enable-libgsm –disable-debug –enable-libmp3lame –enable-libfaad –enable-libfaac –enable-xvid –prefix=/usr

8. make

9. sudo checkinstall -D make install

10. sudo make install

11. This will bring up an installation menu, with a few things we should edit. We need to press “y” to create docs firstly. Then at the menu edit option 2 to be “ffmpeg” and option 3 to be “svn11213-ubuntu-gutsy-20071213″

That should be FFMPEG installed on Ubuntu, if you run into any problems please post them in the comments.

Now how to convert videos using FFMPEG:

1. Firstly, you may want to run the following command to see which formats your FFMPEG installation supports “ffmpeg -formats | less”

2. Now for the simplest form of conversion in terminal type “ffmpeg -i inputfile.extension outfile.extension“, obviously being in the same directory as the video you want to convert.

Its as easy as that!