the libav ffmpeg clusterf*ck

darkphader · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 1217 Location: Motown

Jeez has this been going on for a time... some things really want libav and others really want ffmpeg.

Sometime ago was running libav and then I wanted XBMC so I switched to ffmpeg, and then recently some things didn't like that (dragon for one). So WTF, I went back to libav, but then, of course, XBMC didn't like that.

If only I could use libav for qall of the other proggies and still get XBMC to work... but hey XBMC ships with it's own ffmpeg libraries and in fact they recommend you use them, but for some reason the Gentoo gods do not provide the opportunity to do so.

So here's a diff to the xbmc-13.1.ebuild that worked for me (libav installed). Don't tell me about vdpau (if you use it make sure libvdpau is installed and a modern nvidia driver) as this was a quick test patch. But before I go any further it would be nice if some others got their feet wet and reported back as I don't use many of XBMC's features. It doesn't try to bring in ffmpeg, it did build and the features I tested worked fine.

SamuliSuominen · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:55 am Post subject:

We don't have this covered in http://wiki.gentoo.org/ but the reasons are same for every distribution,

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:No_Bundled_Libraries#Why_no_Bundled_Libraries
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:No_Bundled_Libraries#Security

Providing a way to use bundled libraries, specially ones like FFmpeg that are known to have had massive amount of vulnerabilities in every release, would be totally irresponsible

And if user really wants to do this, knowingly enable the vulnerable libraries, he can do that by using EXTRA_ECONF="--disable-external-libraries" from package.env file,
no ebuild editing required

darkphader · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 1217 Location: Motown

darkphader · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 1217 Location: Motown

SamuliSuominen · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:21 pm Post subject:

darkphader · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 1217 Location: Motown

SamuliSuominen · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 7:03 pm Post subject:

darkphader · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 1217 Location: Motown

gcyoung · Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 6:26 pm Post subject: Libav v ffmpeg

I have a similar problem, in that I recently installed mpv which requires libav. since I find the program excellent for dvb video progs etc., I'm keen to keep it, and have removed mplayer, xine et allia.

An upgrade to libav-9999 forced me to clean out former unwanted programs including ffmpeg. However, it would appear that k3b, which I wish to to keep, needs transcode, which I find will not compile without ffmpeg. There are several other programs which will not complle, as well, but I think I can live without them.

Any advice as to how I can get k3b up and working with libav present would be appreciated, since I'd be reluctant to give up mpv.

Later...
Apologies!

The problem with transcode would not seem to have anything to do with ffmpeg. On a closer look, I find it seems to have a problem with lame and is now reporting an error:

"/usr/include/lame/lame.h:856:11: note: expected 'unsigned char *' but argument is of type 'char *'
/bin/sh ../libtool --tag=CC --mode=compile x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.. -D_REENTRANT -DMOD_PATH=\"/usr/lib64/transcode\" -I.. -I../src -I/usr/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -march=native -O2 -pipe -c -o export_divx5_la-divx4_vbr.lo `test -f 'divx4_vbr.c' || echo './'`divx4_vbr.c
make[2]: *** [export_divx5_la-aud_aux.lo] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
libtool: compile: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.. -D_REENTRANT -DMOD_PATH=\"/usr/lib64/transcode\" -I.. -I../src -I/usr/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -march=native -O2 -pipe -c divx4_vbr.c -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/export_divx5_la-divx4_vbr.o
divx4_vbr.c: In function 'VbrControl_init_2pass_vbr_encoding':
divx4_vbr.c:151:10: warning: ignoring return value of 'fread', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
divx4_vbr.c:157:15: warning: ignoring return value of 'fscanf', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
divx4_vbr.c:158:15: warning: ignoring return value of 'fscanf', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
divx4_vbr.c:204:15: warning: ignoring return value of 'fscanf', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
divx4_vbr.c:236:15: warning: ignoring return value of 'fscanf', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/media-video/transcode-1.1.7-r3/work/transcode-1.1.7/export'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/media-video/transcode-1.1.7-r3/work/transcode-1.1.7'
make: *** [all] Error 2
* ERROR: media-video/transcode-1.1.7-r3::gentoo failed (compile phase):
* emake failed "

I assumed it was to do with ffmpeg since other programs reported a block with ffmpeg and libav when I tried to get them back.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

Strange that transcode won't compile with libav, as that's what I have on my computer with transcode installed. I'm recompiling it again, just to be sure; but I don't recall any issue last time I compiled it. Below is the use flags I have set for libav and transcode, maybe it's an issue with your use flags gcyoung.

*note* I just finished compiling transcode without any issues popping up besides the usual qa warning stuff that you can ignore.

gcyoung · Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 6:07 pm Post subject: libav v ffmpeg

I thought you might be right, c185771 in that libav might be taking over some of the USE flags of transcode. So I had a close look at the compilation, and although there is a great deal I don't follow, I saw that there were a rather large number of warnings and some errors througout the compilation. More than my limited programming knowledge could follow.

As this has only occurred since I "keyworded" libav-9999 and removed ffmpeg I suspect is has to do with errors present in libav. I am so impressed with the versatility and quality of video produced using mpv that I think I can live without transcode until libav and mpv are a bit more stable.

Thanks anyway for responding.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

The thing that alerts me, as a possible source of issue, is using a -9999 version package. Those packages are development packages, and typicaly are not stable in any fashion (typicaly will break more things than not). A general rule that I've always followed is advoid any -9999 packages at all costs, and only use if absolutely necessary (expect for the world to explode when using them too). Sadly, right now at this moment I'm not in linux to try compiling mpv on my system. But you may want to try the regular media-video/libav-9.16 with it, and see what happens. I don't recall for sure, but I'm pretty sure it's only marked as unstable, and from my experience, I rarely have too much problem with an unstable package. A package that hasn't been keyworded though, generaly are really broken; so your looking for some trouble there.

Most likely, in a couple days I'll be back in linux for my usual weekly update; and I can try compiling mpv out then if your issue hasn't been fixed.

gcyoung · Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 8:00 pm Post subject: libav V ffmpeg

You 're probably right, although "nothing ventured nothing gained". I went there because >=mpv-4.0.0 needs it and it's now at version 5.0.1.
I'd been thinking of dropping ffmpeg and moving to libav anyway, and this upgrade simply forced the issue. I think earlier issues of libav do not block ffmpeg, but --9999 does.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

Well, I took a look into mpv, and it seems for my system I won't be able to test it out. For me, it's more of gst-plugins-libav is preventing me from updating libav to >10 which is required for mpv. The fun part is, gst-plugins-libav is out of date (the current available from their website is

franzf · Advocate Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 4565

Just some notes:
* mpv (at least in the past) preferred ffmpeg over libav (so "compatible only with libav" is wrong). Have a look at the ebuild, it allows both, ffmpeg and libav. I use mpv-9999 and rebuilt it just yesterday - everything went fine

(using ffmpeg)
* gst-plugins-libav compiled fine here with ffmpeg
* Even transcode had no issue here - just installed current stable version (1.1.7-r3)

I have media-video/ffmpeg-2.3.3 installed, if that matters. I tried libav some time ago but it only caused me trouble. Went back to ffmpeg and run it on several computers without any issue.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

Yep, I knew mpv perfers ffmpeg, sadly my system is using libav; and not really feeling like breaking my system to convert over to ffmpeg again just for some testing. I had a feeling gcyoung's issue is more of using -9999 level packages with regular packages.