FFMPEG - why do I end up with old version after installing?

Question

I managed to install FFMPEG on Centos via WHM following this guide.

But when I run ffmpeg -version I get:

2.8.15

...whereas the official site says the latest version is 4.0.2.

How can I update my installation or install afresh with the latest version?

(Context: I'm trying to work out why a WEBM-to-MP4 conversion via FFMPEG results in a 0-bytes file and thought updating FFMPEG might help.)

The Nux Desktop repository used in the guide must not have the latest version of FFMPEG. You can request an update on their forums. via — Worthwelle, Nov 2, 2018 at 18:08
Note also, the maintainer of the Nux Desktop repository suggests installing from binaries built from git source. — Worthwelle, Nov 2, 2018 at 18:17
Thanks for the replies. However installing stuff on a server is not something I know anything about. Is it possible to "install from binaries" from within CPanel WHM? I don't have access to the physical server, just WHM. — Mitya, Nov 3, 2018 at 11:51

llogan · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-04 17:51:34Z

1

Forget the Nux Dextop repo. It currently only provides the FFmpeg 2.8 release branch and older (I simply viewed the package directory).

Uninstall the old ffmpeg:
```
sudo yum remove ffmpeg
```
Remove that repository (optional but recommended). I'll leave that up to you.
Download the new ffmpeg. No need for a repo as the pre-compiled binary is sufficient.
```
curl -OL https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-git-64bit-static.tar.xz
```
Extract it:
```
tar xvf ffmpeg-git-64bit-static.tar.xz
```
Copy or move the ffmpeg file to a location in your PATH so it is executable to all users (the date in this example is just a placeholder as it changes depending on when it was compiled):
```
sudo cp ffmpeg-git-20181103-64bit-static/ffmpeg /usr/local/bin
```
Verify that you are running a recent version by running the ffmpeg command. The first line should look something like:
```
ffmpeg version N-92330-gd6d407d2d7 Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
```
...where the d6d407d2d7 (minus the often confusing and annoying g prefix) is the partial hash of the particular commit that this ffmpeg was derived from in the master branch.

answered Nov 3, 2018 at 18:32

llogan

59.6k17 gold badges129 silver badges151 bronze badges

Thank you. I got as far as step 5, which errors. "cannot stat ‘ffmpeg-git-20181103-64bit-static/ffmpeg’: No such file or directory". Everything had gone great up to that point.
– Mitya
Nov 3, 2018 at 18:49
Ah, that seems to be because the resultant tar unzipping produced 20181101, not 20181103 as in your command
– Mitya
Nov 3, 2018 at 18:51
Great - all installed. Though it seems harder to infer version number than with the old one; if I run ffmpeg -version I get ffmpeg version N-47330-g4a976200d7-static - how do you interpret version from that? :)
– Mitya
Nov 3, 2018 at 18:53
@Utkanos The date in my command was just an example as the date changes per build. As for the version, because you are using a build from the git master branch, you will have to go with the commit hash number and view it via git log or git-web (example for 4a976200d7). Releases are always way behind current development: they are intended for distributors or those who need to stay within a specific major version for API compatibility.
– llogan
Nov 3, 2018 at 22:56

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1