======Building ffmpeg on Ubuntu======
ffmpeg is an incredibly versatile and handy tool for working with media files. Unfortunately, the Ubuntu repository no longer tracks changes to ffmpeg.

=====Objectives=====
Obtain the ffmpeg sources, and build a current version on an Ubuntu server.

=====Background=====
ffmpeg is a great tool, but, a little while ago, Ubuntu switched to avconv, a fork of ffmpeg.  Unfortunately, avconv really isn't as good as ffmpeg.  As such, the ffmpeg version with Ubuntu is pretty deprecated, and a lot of things don't work right.

=====Scope=====
This project will walk through the setup and compilation of the most recent ffmpeg version.

=====Procedure=====
====Step 1====
===Getting the required dependencies===
There are a few dependencies for ffmpeg that should be updated before we move onto compilation.  First, update your repository.
<cli>
sudo apt-get update
</cli>

Next, we'll install the dependencies.
<cli>
sudo apt-get -y install autoconf automake build-essential libass-dev libfreetype6-dev libgpac-dev libsdl1.2-dev libtheora-dev libtool libva-dev libvdpau-dev libvorbis-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev pkg-config texi2html zlib1g-dev
</cli>

Finally, we'll install yasm, an assembler which will optimize the build time.
<cli>
sudo apt-get install yasm
</cli>

====Step 2====
===Getting the sources===
Now, we need to get the sources for ffmpeg.  First, make a directory in your home directory titled ffmpeg_sources
<cli>
mkdir ~/ffmpeg_sources
</cli>

There are a few encoder dependencies that need to be gotten and built for ffmpeg.  First, the H.264 video codec.
<cli>
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
wget http://download.videolan.org/pub/x264/snapshots/last_x264.tar.bz2
tar xjvf last_x264.tar.bz2
cd x264-snapshot*
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --enable-static
make
make install
make distclean
</cli>

Next, we need the AAC audio encoder.
<cli>
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
wget -O fdk-aac.zip https://github.com/mstorsjo/fdk-aac/zipball/master
unzip fdk-aac.zip
cd mstorsjo-fdk-aac*
autoreconf -fiv
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared
make
make install
make distclean
</cli>

Next, the MP3 audio codec.
<cli>
sudo apt-get install libmp3lame-dev
</cli>

Now, we'll get the sources for ffmpeg and compile them.
<cli>
cd ~/ffmpeg_sources
wget http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2
tar xjvf ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2
cd ffmpeg
PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib/pkgconfig"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH
./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --extra-cflags="-I$HOME/ffmpeg_build/include" --extra-ldflags="-L$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --extra-libs="-ldl" --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-x11grab
make
make install
make distclean
hash -r
</cli>

After this, ffmpeg should be all compiled and built, and should be in your ~/bin directory.

====Step 5 (Optional)====
===Set up a path variable to ~/bin===
If you want to run your new version of ffmpeg from anywhere, you may need to add ~/bin to your $PATH system variable. First, check to see if your ~/bin directory is listed in your $PATH.  Do this by typing the following:

<cli>
echo $PATH
</cli>

Which will return something like this:

<cli>
/home/shawn/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr.sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games
</cli>

If you don't see "/home/username/bin" listed, we need to add it to our $PATH.  This can be done by editing the ~/.profile file, and adding the following lines to the bottom.

<code>
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi
</code>

This will check the home directory on login, and if it finds a ~/bin folder, it will add it to the path.  After adding this line, save the ~/.profile and restart your shell.  After this, we should be able to call the script from anywhere.  So, let's test it.  Run the following command from any directory.

<cli>
ffmpeg
</cli>

The ffmpeg run dialog should show up, and everything should be good to go!