How To Install FFmpeg on CentOS/RHEL 7/6/5 Linux Systems

In this post, we will show you how to install FFmpeg on Linux systems (RPM Family “Redhat /CentOS /Scientific Linux 7/6/5 and Fedora”).

FFmpeg is a popular open source and cross-platform solution for streaming audio and video as well as recording and conversion. It’s widely used in all kinds of online streaming services. It also useful to convert multimedia files between various formats.

So, Lets start with our simple steps.

Hints:

1. I needed to install FFmpeg on a production servers that serving streaming movies and need to convert from type to another type. 
2. Personally, I needed  FFmpeg to convert audio format of .mkv bluray movie from dts to aac format to work on a smart FHD TV "Actually, it's stupid FHD TV made in Egypt".

Step 1: Updating Your CentOS/RHEL “Optional”

Although this is an optional step, it’s important to update your Linux system before install FFmpeg package. I’ll go and consider that you are using a fresh installed system, so you need first to install some extra repositories for your system.

Here’s I’ll only install the basic repositories needed for installing FFmpeg on CentOS/Redhat Linux Systems.

For other repositories you may need later check this post :

• Additional Yum repositories for CentOS/RHEL Linux systems.

But for now, we will focus on the needed repositories for installing FFmpeg, run the following commands to updating your Linux system.

# yum install -y epel-release.noarch
# yum -y update -y

Now, you should reboot your system first before moving to the next step, run the following command:

# shutdown -r now

Step 2: Install the Nux Dextop YUM repository

This is the main step you must do for installing FFmpeg on CentOS/RHEL Linux systems. Although, there are no official FFmpeg rpm packages for CentOS/RHEL for now. Instead, you can use a 3rd-party YUM repo, Nux Dextop, to finish the job.

• For CentOS/RHEL 7

You can install the Nux Dextop YUM repo with the following commands:

# yum -y install http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el7/x86_64/nux-dextop-release-0-5.el7.nux.noarch.rpm
# rpm --import http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/RPM-GPG-KEY-nux.ro

• For CentOS/RHEL 6/5

You can install the Nux Dextop YUM repo with the following commands:

# yum -y install http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el6/x86_64/nux-dextop-release-0-2.el6.nux.noarch.rpm
# rpm --import http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/RPM-GPG-KEY-nux.ro

Step 3: Installing FFmpeg package

Now, it’s time to install the FFmpeg package, run the following command:

# yum install -y ffmpeg.x86_64

Step 4: Check FFmpeg Version

After successfully installing of FFmpeg, let’s check the version installed on system.

# ffmpeg -version 
ffmpeg version 2.6.8 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 4.8.5 (GCC) 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-4)
configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --optflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic' --enable-bzlib --disable-crystalhd --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libcdio --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libfaac --enable-nonfree --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-nonfree --disable-indev=jack --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-openal --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-avresample --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect
libavutil 54. 20.100 / 54. 20.100
libavcodec 56. 26.100 / 56. 26.100
libavformat 56. 25.101 / 56. 25.101
libavdevice 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavfilter 5. 11.102 / 5. 11.102
libavresample 2. 1. 0 / 2. 1. 0
libswscale 3. 1.101 / 3. 1.101
libswresample 1. 1.100 / 1. 1.100
libpostproc 53. 3.100 / 53. 3.100

Hooray, We successfully installed FFmpeg on CentOS/RHEL Linux systems.