FFmpeg is a complete solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec, the leading audio/video codec library.

NOTE:
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To install FFmpeg on your server, SSH to the server and run the commands below (in that order).

1. Create a directory to do our work in:
   • mkdir ~/ffmpeg
   • cd ~/ffmpeg
2. Get all the source files
   • wget http://www3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ essential-20061022.tar.bz2
   • wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download .php/9225/ flvtool2_1.0.5_rc6.tgz
   • wget http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ lame/lame-3.97.tar.gz
   • wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ ffmpeg-php/ffmpeg-php-0.5.0.tbz2
   • wget http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/ ogg/libogg-1.1.3.tar.gz
   • wget http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/ vorbis/libvorbis-1.1.2.tar.gz
3. Extract all the source files
   • bunzip2 essential-20061022.tar.bz2; tar xvf essential-20061022.tar
   • tar zxvf flvtool2_1.0.5_rc6.tgz
   • tar zxvf lame-3.97.tar.gz
   • bunzip2 ffmpeg-php-0.5.0.tbz2; tar xvf ffmpeg-php-0.5.0.tar
   • tar zxvf libogg-1.1.3.tar.gz
   • tar zxvf libvorbis-1.1.2.tar.gz
4. Create the codecs directory & import them
   • mkdir /usr/local/local/codecs/
   • mv essential-20061022/* /usr/local/local/codecs/
   • chmod -R 755 /usr/local/local/codecs/
5. Install SVN/Ruby (Depends on OS, this is for RHEL/CentOS)
   • yum install subversion
   • yum install ruby
   • yum install ncurses-devel
6. Get the latest FFmpeg/MPlayer from the subversion
   • svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
   • svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk mplayer
7. Compile LAME
   • cd ~/ffmpeg/lame-3.97
   • ./configure
   • make
   • make install
8. Compile libOGG
   • cd ~/ffmpeg/libogg-1.1.3
   • ./configure
   • make
   • make install
9. Compile libVorbis
   • cd ~/ffmpeg/libvorbis-1.1.2
   • ./configure
   • make
   • make install
10. Compile flvtool2
    • cd ~/ffmpeg/flvtool2_1.0.5_rc6
    • ruby setup.rb config
    • ruby setup.rb setup
    • ruby setup.rb install
11. Compile MPlayer
    • cd ~/ffmpeg/mplayer
    • ./configure
    • make
    • make install
12. Compile FFmpeg
    • cd ~/ffmpeg/ffmpeg
    • ./configure --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libogg --enable-libvorbis --disable-mmx --enable-shared
      If configure compile fails, you need to edit the 'configure' file to point to a different tempdir. Create that directory in /home/ffmpeg/tmp Then edit the configure file and find:
      if test ! -z "$TMPDIR" ; then
          TMPDIR1="$"
      elif test ! -z "$TEMPDIR" ; then
          TMPDIR1="$"
      else
          TMPDIR1="/tmp"
      fi
      
      Change to
      
      if test ! -z "$TMPDIR" ; then
          TMPDIR1="$"
      elif test ! -z "$TEMPDIR" ; then
          TMPDIR1="$"
      else
          TMPDIR1="/home/ffmpeg/tmp"
      fi
      
      
      • echo '#define HAVE_LRINTF 1' >> config.h
      • make
      • make install
13. Finalize the codec setups
    • ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavformat.so.50 /usr/lib/libavformat.so.50
    • ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavcodec.so.51 /usr/lib/libavcodec.so.51
    • ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavutil.so.49 /usr/lib/libavutil.so.49
    • ln -s /usr/local/lib/libmp3lame.so.0 /usr/lib/libmp3lame.so.0
    • ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavformat.so.51 /usr/lib/libavformat.so.51
14. Compile FFmpeg-Php
    • cd ~/ffmpeg/ ffmpeg-php-0.5.0
    • phpize
    • ./configure
    • make
    • make install
15. Install FFmpeg-Php (make sure the php.ini path is correct.)
    • echo 'extension=ffmpeg.so' >> /usr/local/local/php.ini
16. Restart Apache to load FFmpeg-Php (Depends on OS, this is for RHEL/CentOS)
    • /sbin/service httpd restart
17. Verify if FFmpeg works
    • php -r 'phpinfo();' | grep ffmpeg
       
      If you get a few lines such as:
      ffmpeg
      ffmpeg support (ffmpeg-php) => enabled
      ffmpeg-php version => 0.5.0
      ffmpeg.allow_persistent => 0 => 0
      
      That means FFMPEG, FFMPEG-PHP, MPlayer, MEncoder, flv2tool, LAME MP3 encoder & libOGG are working on your system.