Windows: Compiling FFMPEG 4.3.1 with only LIBVPX and a few filters

win-compile-ffmpeg.md

Windows: Compiling FFMPEG 4.3.1 with only LIBVPX and a few filters

My goal was to compile minimal FFMPEG binary on Windows with the following properties:

• is statically-linked
• has jpeg decoder
• has vp8 encoder
• has a few enabled filters
• both win32 and win64

Here's my log as of September 3, 2020.

Some context:

• I had success compiling FFMPEG on mac for mac - here's the log
• I failed cross-compiling FFMPEG from mac to windows using https://github.com/rdp/ffmpeg-windows-build-helpers without success. I also failed to cross-compile from barebone ubuntu-18.04 docker image to windows as well. I roughly documented my steps here: https://gist.github.com/aslushnikov/2f07c6219e4d2b02b99f77edd6b7cb12. Resulting build didn't have vp8 encoder.
• I failed using https://github.com/m-ab-s/media-autobuild_suite on Windows 10. The minimal build that I was able to get was 62MB and was full of codecs.

As a result, I succeeded using MSYS2 that I downloaded from https://www.msys2.org/ and installed to c:\msys64.

Part 1: Win64 build

1. Launch c:\msys64\mingw64 to launch a shell with a proper environment.

2. MSYS2 uses pacman to install dependencies. Run the following commands to update & install packages:

$ pacman -Syu
$ pacman -Su
$ pacman -S make pkgconf diffutils yasm
$ pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-nasm mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2

notes:

• yasm is needed for libvpx
• the rest is a general compilation toolchain

3. Compile libvpx manually and install library to a well-known location (prefix):

$ cd /c/
$ git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/webm/libvpx
$ cd libvpx
$ ./configure --prefix=/eee64 --target=x86_64-win64-gcc --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-docs --disable-tools --disable-unit-tests --disable-examples
$ make && make install

Note: libvpx has a useful readme: https://chromium.googlesource.com/webm/libvpx/+/master/README

4. Once libvpx is compiled, compile ffmpeg using the just-compiled libvpx:

$ cd /c/
$ git clone git://source.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
$ cd ffmpeg
$ git checkout n4.3.1
$ ./configure --extra-cflags="-I/eee64/include" \
              --extra-ldflags="-L/eee64/lib -static" \
              --prefix=/eee64 \
              --pkg-config-flags="--static" \
              --bindir=$PWD/output/bin \
              --disable-everything \
              --enable-ffmpeg \
              --enable-protocol=pipe \
              --enable-protocol=file \
              --enable-parser=mjpeg \
              --enable-decoder=mjpeg \
              --enable-demuxer=image2pipe \
              --enable-filter=pad \
              --enable-filter=crop \
              --enable-filter=scale \
              --enable-muxer=webm \
              --enable-libvpx \
              --enable-static \
              --enable-encoder=libvpx_vp8 \
              --disable-pthreads \
              --disable-zlib \
              --disable-iconv \
              --disable-bzlib \
              --disable-w32threads
$ make && make install

note: the following resources helped me to deal with some dynamic dependencies in the resulting ffmpeg.exe:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13768515/how-to-do-static-linking-of-libwinpthread-1-dll-in-mingw

Part 2: Win32 build

1. Launch c:\msys64\mingw32 to launch a shell with a proper environment. i'm not sure if this is required or everything could be done from mingw64 - but it worked.

2. Update libraries for mingw32

$ pacman -Syu
$ pacman -Su

3. Uninstall the x86_64 compilers that we installed to build win64 version:

$ pacman -R mingw-w64-x86_64-nasm mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2

4. Install the i686 compilers instead of their x86_64 counterparts:

$ pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-nasm mingw-w64-i686-gcc mingw-w64-i686-SDL2

5. Remove all old source folders - we'll re-clone everything later for simplicity

$ rm -rf /c/ffmpeg && rm -rf /c/libvpx

6. Clone & compile libvpx. Notice a change: --target=x86-win32-gcc

$ cd /c/
$ git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/webm/libvpx
$ cd libvpx
$ ./configure --prefix=/eee32 --target=x86-win32-gcc --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-docs --disable-tools --disable-unit-tests --disable-examples
$ make && make install

7. Clone & compile ffmpeg

$ cd /c/
$ git clone git://source.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
$ cd ffmpeg
$ git checkout n4.3.1
$ ./configure --extra-cflags="-I/eee32/include" \
              --extra-ldflags="-L/eee32/lib -static" \
              --prefix=/eee32 \
              --pkg-config-flags="--static" \
              --bindir=$PWD/output/bin \
              --disable-everything \
              --enable-ffmpeg \
              --enable-protocol=pipe \
              --enable-protocol=file \
              --enable-parser=mjpeg \
              --enable-decoder=mjpeg \
              --enable-demuxer=image2pipe \
              --enable-filter=pad \
              --enable-filter=crop \
              --enable-filter=scale \
              --enable-muxer=webm \
              --enable-libvpx \
              --enable-static \
              --enable-encoder=libvpx_vp8 \
              --disable-pthreads \
              --disable-zlib \
              --disable-iconv \
              --disable-bzlib \
              --disable-w32threads
$ make && make install

note: using -j for make somehow breaks compilation - so I'd suggest compiling everything in one thread.