How to Install FFmpeg on Windows

FFmpeg is a command-line tool and library for handling multimedia files, developed under the open-source GNU Lesser General Public License. It is written in C programming language and is available for various operating systems such as Windows, macOS, and Linux.

FFmpeg is a highly flexible and versatile tool that can perform a wide range of tasks related to multimedia processing. Some of its key features include:

1. Format Conversion: FFmpeg can convert media files from one format to another, such as from MP4 to AVI or vice versa. It supports various input and output formats, including video, audio, and image formats.
2. Video and Audio Codecs: FFmpeg supports many codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio files, including H.264, MPEG-4, AAC, MP3, and many more. It can also transcode between different codecs and adjust video and audio quality parameters.
3. Streaming: FFmpeg can stream media content online, enabling live video broadcasting and video-on-demand services.
4. Filters: FFmpeg provides a powerful filter system that can apply various effects, transformations, and corrections to media files. These filters can be used to resize, crop, rotate, deinterlace, denoise, sharpen video, and adjust brightness, contrast, and color balance.
5. Subtitles: FFmpeg can add, extract, and manipulate subtitles in various formats, such as SRT, ASS, and VTT. It can also burn subtitles into the video stream or overlay them as separate files.

FFmpeg can be used in various applications, such as video editing, transcoding, media conversion, streaming, and more. It is also widely used in developing multimedia software and applications, including media players, video streaming servers, video surveillance systems, and video editing software. Since it is a command-line tool, it can be easily integrated into scripts and automated workflows for batch processing and other tasks.

This tutorial will install FFmpeg on Windows using various methods and techniques.

Method 1 - Install FFmpeg Using Scoop

The first and most common method to set up FFmpeg on Windows is to use the scoop package manager.

Open the terminal and start by updating scoop:

scoop update

If you do not have Scoop installed on your machine, you can check the tutorial here:

https://www.geekbits.io/how-to-install-scoop-on-windows/

Next, run the command below to install FFmpeg:

scoop install ffmpeg

Output:

Installing 'ffmpeg' (6.0) [64bit] from main bucket
ffmpeg-6.0-full_build.7z (46.8 MB) [==========================================================================] 100%
Checking hash of ffmpeg-6.0-full_build.7z ... ok.
Extracting ffmpeg-6.0-full_build.7z ... done.
Linking ~\scoop\apps\ffmpeg\current => ~\scoop\apps\ffmpeg\6.0
Creating shim for 'ffmpeg'.
Creating shim for 'ffplay'.
Creating shim for 'ffprobe'.
Persisting fonts
'ffmpeg' (6.0) was installed successfully!

Once completed, you should have the latest version of FFmpeg installed on your machine. You can verify by running the command below:

ffmpeg -version

This should return the version information for the installed FFmpeg, as shown in the sample output below:

ffmpeg version 6.0-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 12.2.0 (Rev10, Built by MSYS2 project)
-----
libavutil      58.  2.100 / 58.  2.100
libavcodec     60.  3.100 / 60.  3.100
libavformat    60.  3.100 / 60.  3.100
libavdevice    60.  1.100 / 60.  1.100
libavfilter     9.  3.100 /  9.  3.100
libswscale      7.  1.100 /  7.  1.100
libswresample   4. 10.100 /  4. 10.100
libpostproc    57.  1.100 / 57.  1.100

Method 2 - Install FFmpeg Using Scoop

The second method we can use to set up FFmpeg on Windows is the WinGet package manager. If you do not have WinGet installed, you can check the article provided below:

https://www.geekbits.io/how-to-install-windows-package-manager/

Once WinGet is installed, run the command as shown:

winget install --id=Gyan.FFmpeg  -e

Similarly, the command above should setup FFmpeg on your Windows machine.

Conclusion

In this post, we discussed to main ways of setting up FFmpeg on Windows using scoop and winget package managers. We hope this tutorial helped you. Please feel free to leave us a comment down below and let us know what you think.

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