# General Documentation

# Table of Contents

# 1. external libraries

FFmpeg can be hooked up with a number of external libraries to add support for more formats. None of them are used by default, their use has to be explicitly requested by passing the appropriate flags to ‘`./configure`’.

## 1.1 OpenCORE AMR

FFmpeg can make use of the OpenCORE libraries for AMR-NB decoding/encoding and AMR-WB decoding.

Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencore-amr/ and follow the instructions for installing the libraries. Then pass `--enable-libopencore-amrnb` and/or `--enable-libopencore-amrwb` to configure to enable the libraries.

Note that OpenCORE is under the Apache License 2.0 (see http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 for details), which is incompatible with the LGPL version 2.1 and GPL version 2. You have to upgrade FFmpeg’s license to LGPL version 3 (or if you have enabled GPL components, GPL version 3) to use it.

# 2. Supported File Formats and Codecs

You can use the `-formats` and `-codecs` options to have an exhaustive list.

## 2.1 File Formats

FFmpeg supports the following file formats through the `libavformat` library:

Name | Encoding | Decoding | Comments
4xm |  | X | 4X Technologies format, used in some games.
8088flex TMV |  | X
Adobe Filmstrip | X | X
Audio IFF (AIFF) | X | X
American Laser Games MM |  | X | Multimedia format used in games like Mad Dog McCree.
3GPP AMR | X | X
Apple HTTP Live Streaming |  | X
ASF | X | X
AVI | X | X
AVISynth |  | X
AVS |  | X | Multimedia format used by the Creature Shock game.
Beam Software SIFF |  | X | Audio and video format used in some games by Beam Software.
Bethesda Softworks VID |  | X | Used in some games from Bethesda Softworks.
Bink |  | X | Multimedia format used by many games.
Bitmap Brothers JV |  | X | Used in Z and Z95 games.
Brute Force & Ignorance |  | X | Used in the game Flash Traffic: City of Angels.
Interplay C93 |  | X | Used in the game Cyberia from Interplay.
Delphine Software International CIN |  | X | Multimedia format used by Delphine Software games.
CD+G |  | X | Video format used by CD+G karaoke disks
Core Audio Format |  | X | Apple Core Audio Format
CRC testing format | X |
Creative Voice | X | X | Created for the Sound Blaster Pro.
CRYO APC |  | X | Audio format used in some games by CRYO Interactive Entertainment.
D-Cinema audio | X | X
Deluxe Paint Animation |  | X
DFA |  | X | This format is used in Chronomaster game
DV video | X | X
DXA |  | X | This format is used in the non-Windows version of the Feeble Files game and different game cutscenes repacked for use with ScummVM.
Electronic Arts cdata |  | X
Electronic Arts Multimedia |  | X | Used in various EA games; files have extensions like WVE and UV2.
FFM (FFserver live feed) | X | X
Flash (SWF) | X | X
Flash 9 (AVM2) | X | X | Only embedded audio is decoded.
FLI/FLC/FLX animation |  | X | .fli/.flc files
Flash Video (FLV) |  | X | Macromedia Flash video files
framecrc testing format | X |
FunCom ISS |  | X | Audio format used in various games from FunCom like The Longest Journey.
GIF Animation | X |
GXF | X | X | General eXchange Format SMPTE 360M, used by Thomson Grass Valley playout servers.
id Quake II CIN video |  | X
id RoQ | X | X | Used in Quake III, Jedi Knight 2, other computer games.
IEC61937 encapsulation | X | X
IFF |  | X | Interchange File Format
Interplay MVE |  | X | Format used in various Interplay computer games.
IV8 |  | X | A format generated by IndigoVision 8000 video server.
IVF (On2) | X | X | A format used by libvpx
LMLM4 |  | X | Used by Linux Media Labs MPEG-4 PCI boards
LXF |  | X | VR native stream format, used by Leitch/Harris’ video servers.
Matroska | X | X
Matroska audio | X |
FFmpeg metadata | X | X | Metadata in text format.
MAXIS XA |  | X | Used in Sim City 3000; file extension .xa.
MD Studio |  | X
Mobotix .mxg |  | X
Monkey’s Audio |  | X
Motion Pixels MVI |  | X
MOV/QuickTime/MP4 | X | X | 3GP, 3GP2, PSP, iPod variants supported
MP2 | X | X
MP3 | X | X
MPEG-1 System | X | X | muxed audio and video, VCD format supported
MPEG-PS (program stream) | X | X | also known as `VOB` file, SVCD and DVD format supported
MPEG-TS (transport stream) | X | X | also known as DVB Transport Stream
MPEG-4 | X | X | MPEG-4 is a variant of QuickTime.
MIME multipart JPEG | X |
MSN TCP webcam |  | X | Used by MSN Messenger webcam streams.
MTV |  | X
Musepack |  | X
Musepack SV8 |  | X
Material eXchange Format (MXF) | X | X | SMPTE 377M, used by D-Cinema, broadcast industry.
Material eXchange Format (MXF), D-10 Mapping | X | X | SMPTE 386M, D-10/IMX Mapping.
NC camera feed |  | X | NC (AVIP NC4600) camera streams
NTT TwinVQ (VQF) |  | X | Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation TwinVQ.
Nullsoft Streaming Video |  | X
NuppelVideo |  | X
NUT | X | X | NUT Open Container Format
Ogg | X | X
Playstation Portable PMP |  | X
TechnoTrend PVA |  | X | Used by TechnoTrend DVB PCI boards.
QCP |  | X
raw ADTS (AAC) | X | X
raw AC-3 | X | X
raw Chinese AVS video | X | X
raw CRI ADX | X | X
raw Dirac | X | X
raw DNxHD | X | X
raw DTS | X | X
raw E-AC-3 | X | X
raw FLAC | X | X
raw GSM |  | X
raw H.261 | X | X
raw H.263 | X | X
raw H.264 | X | X
raw Ingenient MJPEG |  | X
raw MJPEG | X | X
raw MLP |  | X
raw MPEG |  | X
raw MPEG-1 |  | X
raw MPEG-2 |  | X
raw MPEG-4 | X | X
raw NULL | X |
raw video | X | X
raw id RoQ | X |
raw Shorten |  | X
raw TrueHD | X | X
raw VC-1 |  | X
raw PCM A-law | X | X
raw PCM mu-law | X | X
raw PCM signed 8 bit | X | X
raw PCM signed 16 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM signed 16 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM signed 24 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM signed 24 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM signed 32 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM signed 32 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 8 bit | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 16 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 16 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 24 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 24 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 32 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM unsigned 32 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM floating-point 32 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM floating-point 32 bit little-endian | X | X
raw PCM floating-point 64 bit big-endian | X | X
raw PCM floating-point 64 bit little-endian | X | X
RDT |  | X
REDCODE R3D |  | X | File format used by RED Digital cameras, contains JPEG 2000 frames and PCM audio.
RealMedia | X | X
Redirector |  | X
Renderware TeXture Dictionary |  | X
RL2 |  | X | Audio and video format used in some games by Entertainment Software Partners.
RPL/ARMovie |  | X
Lego Mindstorms RSO | X | X
RTMP | X | X | Output is performed by publishing stream to RTMP server
RTP | X | X
RTSP | X | X
SAP | X | X
SDP |  | X
Sega FILM/CPK |  | X | Used in many Sega Saturn console games.
Sierra SOL |  | X | .sol files used in Sierra Online games.
Sierra VMD |  | X | Used in Sierra CD-ROM games.
Smacker |  | X | Multimedia format used by many games.
Sony OpenMG (OMA) |  | X | Audio format used in Sony Sonic Stage and Sony Vegas.
Sony PlayStation STR |  | X
Sony Wave64 (W64) |  | X
SoX native format | X | X
SUN AU format | X | X
Text files |  | X
THP |  | X | Used on the Nintendo GameCube.
Tiertex Limited SEQ |  | X | Tiertex .seq files used in the DOS CD-ROM version of the game Flashback.
True Audio |  | X
VC-1 test bitstream | X | X
WAV | X | X
WavPack |  | X
WebM | X | X
Windows Televison (WTV) |  | X
Wing Commander III movie |  | X | Multimedia format used in Origin’s Wing Commander III computer game.
Westwood Studios audio |  | X | Multimedia format used in Westwood Studios games.
Westwood Studios VQA |  | X | Multimedia format used in Westwood Studios games.
YUV4MPEG pipe | X | X
Psygnosis YOP |  | X

`X` means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

## 2.2 Image Formats

FFmpeg can read and write images for each frame of a video sequence. The following image formats are supported:

Name | Encoding | Decoding | Comments
.Y.U.V | X | X | one raw file per component
animated GIF | X | X | Only uncompressed GIFs are generated.
BMP | X | X | Microsoft BMP image
DPX | X | X | Digital Picture Exchange
JPEG | X | X | Progressive JPEG is not supported.
JPEG 2000 |  | E | decoding supported through external library libopenjpeg
JPEG-LS | X | X
LJPEG | X |  | Lossless JPEG
PAM | X | X | PAM is a PNM extension with alpha support.
PBM | X | X | Portable BitMap image
PCX | X | X | PC Paintbrush
PGM | X | X | Portable GrayMap image
PGMYUV | X | X | PGM with U and V components in YUV 4:2:0
PIC |  | X | Pictor/PC Paint
PNG | X | X | 2/4 bpp not supported yet
PPM | X | X | Portable PixelMap image
PTX |  | X | V.Flash PTX format
SGI | X | X | SGI RGB image format
Sun Rasterfile |  | X | Sun RAS image format
TIFF | X | X | YUV, JPEG and some extension is not supported yet.
Truevision Targa | X | X | Targa (.TGA) image format

`X` means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

`E` means that support is provided through an external library.

## 2.3 Video Codecs

Name | Encoding | Decoding | Comments
4X Movie |  | X | Used in certain computer games.
8088flex TMV |  | X
8SVX exponential |  | X
8SVX fibonacci |  | X
A64 multicolor | X |  | Creates video suitable to be played on a commodore 64 (multicolor mode).
American Laser Games MM |  | X | Used in games like Mad Dog McCree.
AMV Video |  | X | Used in Chinese MP3 players.
ANSI/ASCII art |  | X
Apple MJPEG-B |  | X
Apple QuickDraw |  | X | fourcc: qdrw
Asus v1 | X | X | fourcc: ASV1
Asus v2 | X | X | fourcc: ASV2
ATI VCR1 |  | X | fourcc: VCR1
ATI VCR2 |  | X | fourcc: VCR2
Auravision Aura |  | X
Auravision Aura 2 |  | X
Autodesk Animator Flic video |  | X
Autodesk RLE |  | X | fourcc: AASC
AVS (Audio Video Standard) video |  | X | Video encoding used by the Creature Shock game.
Beam Software VB |  | X
Bethesda VID video |  | X | Used in some games from Bethesda Softworks.
Bink Video |  | X
Bitmap Brothers JV video |  | X
Brute Force & Ignorance |  | X | Used in the game Flash Traffic: City of Angels.
C93 video |  | X | Codec used in Cyberia game.
CamStudio |  | X | fourcc: CSCD
CD+G |  | X | Video codec for CD+G karaoke disks
Chinese AVS video | E | X | AVS1-P2, JiZhun profile, encoding through external library libxavs
Delphine Software International CIN video |  | X | Codec used in Delphine Software International games.
Cinepak |  | X
Cirrus Logic AccuPak |  | X | fourcc: CLJR
Creative YUV (CYUV) |  | X
DFA |  | X | Codec used in Chronomaster game.
Dirac | E | E | supported through external libdirac/libschroedinger libraries
Deluxe Paint Animation |  | X
DNxHD | X | X | aka SMPTE VC3
Duck TrueMotion 1.0 |  | X | fourcc: DUCK
Duck TrueMotion 2.0 |  | X | fourcc: TM20
DV (Digital Video) | X | X
Feeble Files/ScummVM DXA |  | X | Codec originally used in Feeble Files game.
Electronic Arts CMV video |  | X | Used in NHL 95 game.
Electronic Arts Madcow video |  | X
Electronic Arts TGV video |  | X
Electronic Arts TGQ video |  | X
Electronic Arts TQI video |  | X
Escape 124 |  | X
FFmpeg video codec #1 | X | X | experimental lossless codec (fourcc: FFV1)
Flash Screen Video v1 | X | X | fourcc: FSV1
Flash Video (FLV) | X | X | Sorenson H.263 used in Flash
Fraps |  | X
H.261 | X | X
H.263 / H.263-1996 | X | X
H.263+ / H.263-1998 / H.263 version 2 | X | X
H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 | E | X | encoding supported through external library libx264
H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 (VDPAU acceleration) | E | X
HuffYUV | X | X
HuffYUV FFmpeg variant | X | X
IBM Ultimotion |  | X | fourcc: ULTI
id Cinematic video |  | X | Used in Quake II.
id RoQ video | X | X | Used in Quake III, Jedi Knight 2, other computer games.
IFF ILBM |  | X | IFF interlaved bitmap
IFF ByteRun1 |  | X | IFF run length encoded bitmap
Intel H.263 |  | X
Intel Indeo 2 |  | X
Intel Indeo 3 |  | X
Intel Indeo 5 |  | X
Interplay C93 |  | X | Used in the game Cyberia from Interplay.
Interplay MVE video |  | X | Used in Interplay .MVE files.
Karl Morton’s video codec |  | X | Codec used in Worms games.
Kega Game Video (KGV1) |  | X | Kega emulator screen capture codec.
Lagarith |  | X
LCL (LossLess Codec Library) MSZH |  | X
LCL (LossLess Codec Library) ZLIB | E | E
LOCO |  | X
lossless MJPEG | X | X
Microsoft RLE |  | X
Microsoft Video 1 |  | X
Mimic |  | X | Used in MSN Messenger Webcam streams.
Miro VideoXL |  | X | fourcc: VIXL
MJPEG (Motion JPEG) | X | X
Motion Pixels video |  | X
MPEG-1 video | X | X
MPEG-1/2 video XvMC (X-Video Motion Compensation) |  | X
MPEG-1/2 video (VDPAU acceleration) |  | X
MPEG-2 video | X | X
MPEG-4 part 2 | X | X libxvidcore can be used alternatively for encoding.
MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 1 |  | X
MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 2 | X | X
MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 3 | X | X
Nintendo Gamecube THP video |  | X
NuppelVideo/RTjpeg |  | X | Video encoding used in NuppelVideo files.
On2 VP3 |  | X | still experimental
On2 VP5 |  | X | fourcc: VP50
On2 VP6 |  | X | fourcc: VP60,VP61,VP62
VP8 | E | X | fourcc: VP80, encoding supported through external library libvpx
planar RGB |  | X | fourcc: 8BPS
Q-team QPEG |  | X | fourccs: QPEG, Q1.0, Q1.1
QuickTime 8BPS video |  | X
QuickTime Animation (RLE) video | X | X | fourcc: ’rle ’
QuickTime Graphics (SMC) |  | X | fourcc: ’smc ’
QuickTime video (RPZA) |  | X | fourcc: rpza
R10K AJA Kona 10-bit RGB Codec |  | X
R210 Quicktime Uncompressed RGB 10-bit |  | X
Raw Video | X | X
RealVideo 1.0 | X | X
RealVideo 2.0 | X | X
RealVideo 3.0 |  | X | still far from ideal
RealVideo 4.0 |  | X
Renderware TXD (TeXture Dictionary) |  | X | Texture dictionaries used by the Renderware Engine.
RL2 video |  | X | used in some games by Entertainment Software Partners
Sierra VMD video |  | X | Used in Sierra VMD files.
Smacker video |  | X | Video encoding used in Smacker.
SMPTE VC-1 |  | X
Snow | X | X | experimental wavelet codec (fourcc: SNOW)
Sony PlayStation MDEC (Motion DECoder) |  | X
Sorenson Vector Quantizer 1 | X | X | fourcc: SVQ1
Sorenson Vector Quantizer 3 |  | X | fourcc: SVQ3
Sunplus JPEG (SP5X) |  | X | fourcc: SP5X
TechSmith Screen Capture Codec |  | X | fourcc: TSCC
Theora | E | X | encoding supported through external library libtheora
Tiertex Limited SEQ video |  | X | Codec used in DOS CD-ROM FlashBack game.
V210 Quicktime Uncompressed 4:2:2 10-bit | X | X
VMware Screen Codec / VMware Video |  | X | Codec used in videos captured by VMware.
Westwood Studios VQA (Vector Quantized Animation) video |  | X
Windows Media Video 7 | X | X
Windows Media Video 8 | X | X
Windows Media Video 9 |  | X | not completely working
Wing Commander III / Xan |  | X | Used in Wing Commander III .MVE files.
Wing Commander IV / Xan |  | X | Used in Wing Commander IV.
Winnov WNV1 |  | X
WMV7 | X | X
YAMAHA SMAF | X | X
Psygnosis YOP Video |  | X
ZLIB | X | X | part of LCL, encoder experimental
Zip Motion Blocks Video | X | X | Encoder works only in PAL8.

`X` means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

`E` means that support is provided through an external library.

## 2.4 Audio Codecs

Name | Encoding | Decoding | Comments
8SVX audio |  | X
AAC | E | X | encoding supported through external library libfaac
AC-3 | IX | X
ADPCM 4X Movie |  | X
ADPCM CDROM XA |  | X
ADPCM Creative Technology |  | X | 16 -> 4, 8 -> 4, 8 -> 3, 8 -> 2
ADPCM Electronic Arts |  | X | Used in various EA titles.
ADPCM Electronic Arts Maxis CDROM XS |  | X | Used in Sim City 3000.
ADPCM Electronic Arts R1 |  | X
ADPCM Electronic Arts R2 |  | X
ADPCM Electronic Arts R3 |  | X
ADPCM Electronic Arts XAS |  | X
ADPCM G.722 | X | X
ADPCM G.726 | X | X
ADPCM IMA AMV |  | X | Used in AMV files
ADPCM IMA Electronic Arts EACS |  | X
ADPCM IMA Electronic Arts SEAD |  | X
ADPCM IMA Funcom |  | X
ADPCM IMA QuickTime | X | X
ADPCM IMA Loki SDL MJPEG |  | X
ADPCM IMA WAV | X | X
ADPCM IMA Westwood |  | X
ADPCM ISS IMA |  | X | Used in FunCom games.
ADPCM IMA Duck DK3 |  | X | Used in some Sega Saturn console games.
ADPCM IMA Duck DK4 |  | X | Used in some Sega Saturn console games.
ADPCM Microsoft | X | X
ADPCM MS IMA | X | X
ADPCM Nintendo Gamecube THP |  | X
ADPCM QT IMA | X | X
ADPCM SEGA CRI ADX | X | X | Used in Sega Dreamcast games.
ADPCM Shockwave Flash | X | X
ADPCM SMJPEG IMA |  | X | Used in certain Loki game ports.
ADPCM Sound Blaster Pro 2-bit |  | X
ADPCM Sound Blaster Pro 2.6-bit |  | X
ADPCM Sound Blaster Pro 4-bit |  | X
ADPCM Westwood Studios IMA |  | X | Used in Westwood Studios games like Command and Conquer.
ADPCM Yamaha | X | X
AMR-NB | E | X | encoding supported through external library libopencore-amrnb
AMR-WB |  | X
Apple lossless audio | X | X | QuickTime fourcc ’alac’
Atrac 1 |  | X
Atrac 3 |  | X
Bink Audio |  | X | Used in Bink and Smacker files in many games.
Delphine Software International CIN audio |  | X | Codec used in Delphine Software International games.
COOK |  | X | All versions except 5.1 are supported.
DCA (DTS Coherent Acoustics) |  | X
DPCM id RoQ | X | X | Used in Quake III, Jedi Knight 2, other computer games.
DPCM Interplay |  | X | Used in various Interplay computer games.
DPCM Sierra Online |  | X | Used in Sierra Online game audio files.
DPCM Sol |  | X
DPCM Xan |  | X | Used in Origin’s Wing Commander IV AVI files.
DSP Group TrueSpeech |  | X
DV audio |  | X
Enhanced AC-3 |  | X
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) | X | IX
GSM | E | X | encoding supported through external library libgsm
GSM Microsoft variant | E | X | encoding supported through external library libgsm
IMC (Intel Music Coder) |  | X
MACE (Macintosh Audio Compression/Expansion) 3:1 |  | X
MACE (Macintosh Audio Compression/Expansion) 6:1 |  | X
MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) |  | X | Used in DVD-Audio discs.
Monkey’s Audio |  | X | Only versions 3.97-3.99 are supported.
MP1 (MPEG audio layer 1) |  | IX
MP2 (MPEG audio layer 2) | IX | IX
MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3) | E | IX | encoding supported through external library LAME, ADU MP3 and MP3onMP4 also supported
MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding (ALS) |  | X
Musepack SV7 |  | X
Musepack SV8 |  | X
Nellymoser Asao | X | X
PCM A-law | X | X
PCM mu-law | X | X
PCM 16-bit little-endian planar |  | X
PCM 32-bit floating point big-endian | X | X
PCM 32-bit floating point little-endian | X | X
PCM 64-bit floating point big-endian | X | X
PCM 64-bit floating point little-endian | X | X
PCM D-Cinema audio signed 24-bit | X | X
PCM signed 8-bit | X | X
PCM signed 16-bit big-endian | X | X
PCM signed 16-bit little-endian | X | X
PCM signed 24-bit big-endian | X | X
PCM signed 24-bit little-endian | X | X
PCM signed 32-bit big-endian | X | X
PCM signed 32-bit little-endian | X | X
PCM signed 16/20/24-bit big-endian in MPEG-TS |  | X
PCM unsigned 8-bit | X | X
PCM unsigned 16-bit big-endian | X | X
PCM unsigned 16-bit little-endian | X | X
PCM unsigned 24-bit big-endian | X | X
PCM unsigned 24-bit little-endian | X | X
PCM unsigned 32-bit big-endian | X | X
PCM unsigned 32-bit little-endian | X | X
PCM Zork | X | X
QCELP / PureVoice |  | X
QDesign Music Codec 2 |  | X | There are still some distortions.
RealAudio 1.0 (14.4K) | X | X | Real 14400 bit/s codec
RealAudio 2.0 (28.8K) |  | X | Real 28800 bit/s codec
RealAudio 3.0 (dnet) | IX | X | Real low bitrate AC-3 codec
RealAudio SIPR / ACELP.NET |  | X
Shorten |  | X
Sierra VMD audio |  | X | Used in Sierra VMD files.
Smacker audio |  | X
Sonic | X | X | experimental codec
Sonic lossless | X | X | experimental codec
Speex |  | E | supported through external library libspeex
True Audio (TTA) |  | X
TrueHD |  | X | Used in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs.
TwinVQ (VQF flavor) |  | X
Vorbis | E | X | A native but very primitive encoder exists.
WavPack |  | X
Westwood Audio (SND1) |  | X
Windows Media Audio 1 | X | X
Windows Media Audio 2 | X | X
Windows Media Audio Pro |  | X
Windows Media Audio Voice |  | X

`X` means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

`E` means that support is provided through an external library.

`I` means that an integer-only version is available, too (ensures high performance on systems without hardware floating point support).

## 2.5 Subtitle Formats

Name | Muxing | Demuxing | Encoding | Decoding
SSA/ASS | X | X | X | X
DVB | X | X | X | X
DVD | X | X | X | X
MicroDVD | X | X |  |
PGS |  |  |  | X
SubRip (SRT) | X | X | X | X
XSUB |  |  | X | X

`X` means that the feature is supported.

## 2.6 Network Protocols

Name | Support
Apple HTTP Live Streaming | X
file | X
Gopher | X
HTTP | X
MMS | X
pipe | X
RTP | X
TCP | X
UDP | X

`X` means that the protocol is supported.

## 2.7 Input/Output Devices

Name | Input | Output
ALSA | X | X
BKTR | X |
DV1394 | X |
JACK | X |
LIBDC1394 | X |
OSS | X | X
Video4Linux | X |
Video4Linux2 | X |
VfW capture | X |
X11 grabbing | X |

`X` means that input/output is supported.

# 3. Platform Specific information

## 3.1 DOS

Using a cross-compiler is preferred for various reasons.

### 3.1.1 DJGPP

FFmpeg cannot be compiled because of broken system headers, add `--extra-cflags=-U__STRICT_ANSI__` to the configure options as a workaround.

## 3.2 OS/2

For information about compiling FFmpeg on OS/2 see http://www.edm2.com/index.php/FFmpeg.

## 3.3 Unix-like

Some parts of FFmpeg cannot be built with version 2.15 of the GNU assembler which is still provided by a few AMD64 distributions. To make sure your compiler really uses the required version of gas after a binutils upgrade, run:

    $(gcc -print-prog-name=as) --version

If not, then you should install a different compiler that has no hard-coded path to gas. In the worst case pass `--disable-asm` to configure.

### 3.3.1 BSD

BSD make will not build FFmpeg, you need to install and use GNU Make (‘`gmake`’).

#### 3.3.1.1 FreeBSD

FreeBSD will not compile out-of-the-box due to broken system headers. Passing `--extra-cflags=-D__BSD_VISIBLE` to configure will work around the problem. This may have unexpected sideeffects, so use it at your own risk. If you care about FreeBSD, please make an attempt at getting the system headers fixed.

### 3.3.2 (Open)Solaris

GNU Make is required to build FFmpeg, so you have to invoke (‘`gmake`’), standard Solaris Make will not work. When building with a non-c99 front-end (gcc, generic suncc) add either `--extra-libs=/usr/lib/values-xpg6.o` or `--extra-libs=/usr/lib/64/values-xpg6.o` to the configure options since the libc is not c99-compliant by default. The probes performed by configure may raise an exception leading to the death of configure itself due to a bug in the system shell. Simply invoke a different shell such as bash directly to work around this:

    bash ./configure

### 3.3.3 Darwin (MacOS X, iPhone)

MacOS X on PowerPC or ARM (iPhone) requires a preprocessor from http://github.com/yuvi/gas-preprocessor to build the optimized assembler functions. Just download the Perl script and put it somewhere in your PATH, FFmpeg’s configure will pick it up automatically.

## 3.4 Windows

To get help and instructions for building FFmpeg under Windows, check out the FFmpeg Windows Help Forum at http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/.

### 3.4.1 Native Windows compilation

FFmpeg can be built to run natively on Windows using the MinGW tools. Install the latest versions of MSYS and MinGW from http://www.mingw.org/. You can find detailed installation instructions in the download section and the FAQ.

FFmpeg does not build out-of-the-box with the packages the automated MinGW installer provides. It also requires coreutils to be installed and many other packages updated to the latest version. The minimum version for some packages are listed below:

- bash 3.1
- msys-make 3.81-2 (note: not mingw32-make)
- w32api 3.13
- mingw-runtime 3.15

FFmpeg automatically passes `-fno-common` to the compiler to work around a GCC bug (see http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=37216).

Within the MSYS shell, configure and make with:

    ./configure --enable-memalign-hack
    make
    make install

This will install ‘`ffmpeg.exe`’ along with many other development files to ‘`/usr/local`’. You may specify another install path using the `--prefix` option in ‘`configure`’.

Notes:

- Building natively using MSYS can be sped up by disabling implicit rules in the Makefile by calling `make -r` instead of plain `make`. This speed up is close to non-existent for normal one-off builds and is only noticeable when running make for a second time (for example in `make install`).
- In order to compile FFplay, you must have the MinGW development library of SDL. Get it from http://www.libsdl.org. Edit the ‘`bin/sdl-config`’ script so that it points to the correct prefix where SDL was installed. Verify that ‘`sdl-config`’ can be launched from the MSYS command line.
- By using `./configure --enable-shared` when configuring FFmpeg, you can build libavutil, libavcodec and libavformat as DLLs.

### 3.4.2 Microsoft Visual C++ compatibility

As stated in the FAQ, FFmpeg will not compile under MSVC++. However, if you want to use the libav* libraries in your own applications, you can still compile those applications using MSVC++. But the libav* libraries you link to must be built with MinGW. However, you will not be able to debug inside the libav* libraries, since MSVC++ does not recognize the debug symbols generated by GCC. We strongly recommend you to move over from MSVC++ to MinGW tools.

This description of how to use the FFmpeg libraries with MSVC++ is based on Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition. If you have a different version, you might have to modify the procedures slightly.

#### 3.4.2.1 Using static libraries

Assuming you have just built and installed FFmpeg in ‘`/usr/local`’.

1. Create a new console application ("File / New / Project") and then select "Win32 Console Application". On the appropriate page of the Application Wizard, uncheck the "Precompiled headers" option.
2. Write the source code for your application, or, for testing, just copy the code from an existing sample application into the source file that MSVC++ has already created for you. For example, you can copy ‘`libavformat/output-example.c`’ from the FFmpeg distribution.
3. Open the "Project / Properties" dialog box. In the "Configuration" combo box, select "All Configurations" so that the changes you make will affect both debug and release builds. In the tree view on the left hand side, select "C/C++ / General", then edit the "Additional Include Directories" setting to contain the path where the FFmpeg includes were installed (i.e. ‘`c:\msys\1.0\local\include`’). Do not add MinGW’s include directory here, or the include files will conflict with MSVC’s.
4. Still in the "Project / Properties" dialog box, select "Linker / General" from the tree view and edit the "Additional Library Directories" setting to contain the ‘`lib`’ directory where FFmpeg was installed (i.e. ‘`c:\msys\1.0\local\lib`’), the directory where MinGW libs are installed (i.e. ‘`c:\mingw\lib`’), and the directory where MinGW’s GCC libs are installed (i.e. ‘`C:\mingw\lib\gcc\mingw32\4.2.1-sjlj`’). Then select "Linker / Input" from the tree view, and add the files ‘`libavformat.a`’, ‘`libavcodec.a`’, ‘`libavutil.a`’, ‘`libmingwex.a`’, ‘`libgcc.a`’, and any other libraries you used (i.e. ‘`libz.a`’) to the end of "Additional Dependencies".
5. Now, select "C/C++ / Code Generation" from the tree view. Select "Debug" in the "Configuration" combo box. Make sure that "Runtime Library" is set to "Multi-threaded Debug DLL". Then, select "Release" in the "Configuration" combo box and make sure that "Runtime Library" is set to "Multi-threaded DLL".
6. Click "OK" to close the "Project / Properties" dialog box.
7. MSVC++ lacks some C99 header files that are fundamental for FFmpeg. Get msinttypes from http://code.google.com/p/msinttypes/downloads/list and install it in MSVC++’s include directory (i.e. ‘`C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include`’).
8. MSVC++ also does not understand the `inline` keyword used by FFmpeg, so you must add this line before `#include`ing libav*:

       #define inline _inline

9. Build your application, everything should work.

#### 3.4.2.2 Using shared libraries

This is how to create DLL and LIB files that are compatible with MSVC++:

1. Add a call to ‘`vcvars32.bat`’ (which sets up the environment variables for the Visual C++ tools) as the first line of ‘`msys.bat`’. The standard location for ‘`vcvars32.bat`’ is ‘`C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat`’, and the standard location for ‘`msys.bat`’ is ‘`C:\msys\1.0\msys.bat`’. If this corresponds to your setup, add the following line as the first line of ‘`msys.bat`’:

       call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat"

   Alternatively, you may start the ‘`Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt`’, and run ‘`c:\msys\1.0\msys.bat`’ from there.

2. Within the MSYS shell, run `lib.exe`. If you get a help message from ‘`Microsoft (R) Library Manager`’, this means your environment variables are set up correctly, the ‘`Microsoft (R) Library Manager`’ is on the path and will be used by FFmpeg to create MSVC++-compatible import libraries.
3. Build FFmpeg with

       ./configure --enable-shared --enable-memalign-hack
       make
       make install

   Your install path (‘`/usr/local/`’ by default) should now have the necessary DLL and LIB files under the ‘`bin`’ directory.

To use those files with MSVC++, do the same as you would do with the static libraries, as described above. But in Step 4, you should only need to add the directory where the LIB files are installed (i.e. ‘`c:\msys\usr\local\bin`’). This is not a typo, the LIB files are installed in the ‘`bin`’ directory. And instead of adding the static libraries (‘`libxxx.a`’ files) you should add the MSVC import libraries (‘`avcodec.lib`’, ‘`avformat.lib`’, and ‘`avutil.lib`’). Note that you should not use the GCC import libraries (‘`libxxx.dll.a`’ files), as these will give you undefined reference errors. There should be no need for ‘`libmingwex.a`’, ‘`libgcc.a`’, and ‘`wsock32.lib`’, nor any other external library statically linked into the DLLs. The ‘`bin`’ directory contains a bunch of DLL files, but the ones that are actually used to run your application are the ones with a major version number in their filenames (i.e. ‘`avcodec-51.dll`’).

FFmpeg headers do not declare global data for Windows DLLs through the usual dllexport/dllimport interface. Such data will be exported properly while building, but to use them in your MSVC++ code you will have to edit the appropriate headers and mark the data as dllimport. For example, in libavutil/pixdesc.h you should have:

    extern __declspec(dllimport) const AVPixFmtDescriptor av_pix_fmt_descriptors[];

Note that using import libraries created by dlltool requires the linker optimization option to be set to "References: Keep Unreferenced Data (/OPT:NOREF)", otherwise the resulting binaries will fail during runtime. This isn’t required when using import libraries generated by lib.exe.

### 3.4.3 Cross compilation for Windows with Linux

You must use the MinGW cross compilation tools available at http://www.mingw.org/.

Then configure FFmpeg with the following options:

    ./configure --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i386-mingw32msvc-

(you can change the cross-prefix according to the prefix chosen for the MinGW tools).

Then you can easily test FFmpeg with Wine (http://www.winehq.com/).

### 3.4.4 Compilation under Cygwin

Please use Cygwin 1.7.x as the obsolete 1.5.x Cygwin versions lack llrint() in its C library.

Install your Cygwin with all the "Base" packages, plus the following "Devel" ones:

    binutils, gcc4-core, make, git, mingw-runtime, texi2html

And the following "Utils" one:

    diffutils

Then run

    ./configure --enable-static --disable-shared

to make a static build.

The current `gcc4-core` package is buggy and needs this flag to build shared libraries:

    ./configure --enable-shared --disable-static --extra-cflags=-fno-reorder-functions

If you want to build FFmpeg with additional libraries, download Cygwin "Devel" packages for Ogg and Vorbis from any Cygwin packages repository:

    libogg-devel, libvorbis-devel

These library packages are only available from Cygwin Ports (http://sourceware.org/cygwinports/) :

    yasm, libSDL-devel, libdirac-devel, libfaac-devel, libgsm-devel,
    libmp3lame-devel, libschroedinger1.0-devel, speex-devel, libtheora-devel,
    libxvidcore-devel

The recommendation for libnut and x264 is to build them from source by yourself, as they evolve too quickly for Cygwin Ports to be up to date.

Cygwin 1.7.x has IPv6 support. You can add IPv6 to Cygwin 1.5.x by means of the `libgetaddrinfo-devel` package, available at Cygwin Ports.

### 3.4.5 Crosscompilation for Windows under Cygwin

With Cygwin you can create Windows binaries that do not need the cygwin1.dll.

Just install your Cygwin as explained before, plus these additional "Devel" packages:

    gcc-mingw-core, mingw-runtime, mingw-zlib

and add some special flags to your configure invocation.

For a static build run

    ./configure --target-os=mingw32 --enable-memalign-hack --enable-static --disable-shared --extra-cflags=-mno-cygwin --extra-libs=-mno-cygwin

and for a build with shared libraries

    ./configure --target-os=mingw32 --enable-memalign-hack --enable-shared --disable-static --extra-cflags=-mno-cygwin --extra-libs=-mno-cygwin

This document was generated by jasper on August 18, 2011 using texi2html 1.82.