Or: how can you install FFMPEG encoder on Linux?

How many times have you been annoyed by online videos in different proprietary streaming encodings? Have you looked at the beauty of Youtube, Google Video, Revver etc. with owe? Did you envy the way they accept long list of different encodings, re-encode them into FLV and display to the users in the most friendly format?

Well, envy no more. Open-source library FFMPEG is a fantastic video encoder. You may need some help installing this beast, however. Unfortunately, friendly installation seems to be very low on their priority list. Even worse, when you spend hours struggling with the ffmpeg installation, you will find out that once encoded into FLV sound is lost, videos are completely mute! Bummer.

That is because FLV audio is mp3 and ffmpeg does not come with mp3 support by default. You will have to download and install Lame mp3 encoder first.

So, this is the bird’s eye-view:

> sudo su - root
download lame, uncompress and all...
> ./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr
>  make
> make install

make sure it was successful by issuing on bash: lame

Now, export ffmpeg HEAD from their SVN
(these dudes do not produce source distros).
If it breaks, try some earlier date.

> ./configure --enable-gpl --enable-libmp3lame --enable-shared
>  make
>  make install

and, then you can feel free to start encoding with a command as simple as:

ffmpeg -i source.mov output.flv