How to get ffmpeg v 7.1 or higher?

[Bo Berglund]

On Fri, 26 Sep 2025 16:05:59 +0800, Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:

>On 26/9/25 14:30, Bo Berglund wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2025 04:59:11 +0800, Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:
>> 
>>>  From what I have found so far, in also viewing
>>> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ffmpeg
>>> I am wondering whether you would need to do a distribution upgrade to
>>> 25.04, to get a version of ffmpeg that you want.
>>>
>> 
>> No, I did as follows instead:
>> 
>> Inside a dir $HOME/projects:
>> wget
>> https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/download/latest/ffmpeg-master-latest-linux64-gpl.tar.xz
>> 
>> After decompressing the tar.xz file I could get the latest ffmpeg executables
>> from the bin dir in the tree.
>> Then I symlinked ffmpeg into $HOME/bin
>> 
>> Now I have the latest ffmpeg available for my private use.
>> 
>> 
>
>Okay - does that work okay with both any dependencies that ffmpeg may 
>have, and, with any applications that use ffmpeg, in terms of the 
>versions that are inherent in the operating system?
>
>What concerns me, and, this is part of why I raised the prospect of the 
>possible need for upgrading the operating system version, is that, from 
>what I found, 25.04 is the first Ubuntu version that shows as having 
>v7.x of ffmpeg available in its repositories, and, it had occurred to 
>me, in that, that any dependencies that ffmpeg has, and, any 
>applications that use ffmpeg, should be compatible, in terms of their 
>versions that are in the operating system version default system 
>repositories, being compatible with the version(s) of ffmpeg that are 
>available in the operating system version default repositories.
>
>Maybe I am overthinking this, but, this is an aspect that has/had me 
>concerned, about installing a later version of ffmpeg, than is available 
>in each particular operating system version default repositories.
>

The github ffmpeg download is a static build so it contains all of its
dependencies "built-in" into a single *big* executable file.
It is 176.3 MB in size....

This is exactly like the yt-dlp one can get from github too.


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden