Build FFmpeg with xfade-easing on Windows

Summary

A Bash script to automate building FFmpeg incorporating the xfade-easing patches to the xfade filter natively from source on Windows under MSYS2.

It can build

• a minimal static version with just x264+zlib using MSVC or ClangCL
• a richer dynamic configuration using clang or gcc toolchains under Mingw64.

There are other, better FFmpeg Windows builder repos on GitHub but this one applies the patch for xfade-easing.

Usage

1. follow the MSYS2 installation instructions

2. launch a MSYS2 Environment terminal from a shortcut in the Windows Start Menu (MSYS2 folder) or run C:\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd -env from a Command Prompt window where env is one of msys/urct64/clang64/clangarm64/mingw64

   • MSYS environment (default) for a minimal static build using the MSVC or ClangCL toolchain
     • requires Microsoft Visual C++ installed and msys2-vcvars.sh in same directory as ffmpeg-makexe.sh
     • requires Visual Studio Clang components to use the MSVC-compatible clang-cl compiler
   • UCRT64 environment for a dynamic build using the gcc toolchain
   • CLANG64 environment for a dynamic build using the clang toolchain
   • CLANGARM64 environment for a dynamic build using the clang toolchain (untested)
   • MINGW64 environment for a dynamic build using the old msvcrt library (not recommended)

   the type of build is determined by environment variable MSYSTEM which defaults to MSYS

   for ClangCL run export CC=clang-cl

3. download and run ffmpeg-makexe.sh; it creates binaries in /opt/scriptituk/<env>/dist/ where <env> is the MSYS2 MinGW environment, or msvc or clangcl for the MSYS environment

4. manually copy the built binaries to C:\Program Files\ and edit the %PATH% accordingly

The script downloads all the required sources automatically and installs command tools and environment toolchains using pacman.

Details

There are two versions: a static ffmpeg.exe and a 7-zip archive containing ffmpeg.exe and dependent DLLs.

Static MSVC builds

The MSYS environment builds a minimal static ffmpeg.exe with x264 encoding and zlib for PNG decoding. It is based on Roxlu’s guide.

It executes the Visual Studio vcvarsall.bat script to ingest the MSVC development environment using msys2-vcvars .

If more than one instance of vcvarsall.bat is found then set VCVARSALL_PATH to the absolute path (Windows or Unix) of the required instance.

To compile with clang-cl instead of cl, do export CC=clang-cl first, or run CC=clang-cl ffmpeg-makexe.sh.

Configuration:

    --extra-version=scriptituk/xfade-easing  
    --prefix=/opt/scriptituk/msys  
    --pkg-config=pkgconf --pkg-config-flags=--static  
    --enable-static --disable-shared --toolchain=msvc  
    --target-os=win64 --arch=x86_64 --enable-x86asm  
    --enable-gpl --enable-libx264 --enable-zlib  
    --disable-debug --disable-doc  
    --extra-cflags='-utf-8 -MT -wd4090 -wd4101 -wd4113 -wd4114 -wd4133 -Wv:12'

(clang-cl is the same except for --prefix, --shlibdir, --toolchain)

ClangCL builds slower than MSVC and produces larger binaries but runs faster.

Shared clang/gcc builds

The CLANG64/UCRT64/etc. environments build a ffmpeg.7z archive containing ffmpeg.exe and all its constituent DLLs. Requires 7-zip.

Extract to C:\Program Files\. It creates a folder FFmpeg\.

Configuration:

    --extra-version=scriptituk/xfade-easing
    --prefix=/opt/scriptituk/clang64 --shlibdir=/opt/scriptituk/clang64/so
    --arch=x86_64 --target-os=mingw32 --cc=clang --cxx=clang++
    --disable-static --enable-shared
    --disable-ffplay --disable-debug --disable-doc
    --enable-dxva2 --enable-d3d11va --enable-d3d12va --enable-frei0r --enable-gmp
    --enable-gnutls --enable-gpl --enable-iconv --enable-libaom --enable-libass
    --enable-libbluray --enable-libcaca --enable-libdav1d --enable-libfontconfig
    --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm
    --enable-libharfbuzz --enable-libjxl --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame
    --enable-libopencore_amrnb --enable-libopencore_amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg
    --enable-libopus --enable-librsvg --enable-librtmp --enable-libssh
    --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libsrt --enable-libvidstab
    --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-libvpx --enable-libwebp
    --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-libzvbi --enable-openal
    --enable-pic --enable-postproc --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-swresample
    --enable-version3 --enable-zlib --enable-librav1e --enable-libvpl
    --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-liblc3

(UCRT64 is the same except for --prefix, --shlibdir, --cc, --cxx which show ucrt64 and gcc; similarly other environments)

The clang toolchain builds faster than gcc and produces smaller binaries but runs slightly slower.

Performance

Interestingly, ClangCL runs fastest, then MSVC, with MinGW gcc a little faster than MinGW clang.

See also

• scriptituk/xfade-easing – Easing and extensions for FFmpeg Xfade filter
• scriptituk/msys2-vcvars – Import MSVC environment variables into Msys2
• Msys2 Environments – environment for building, installing and running native Windows software
• Visual Studio Community Edition – free Microsoft Visual Studio Community edition
• ffmpeg-windows-build-helpers – cross compiles Windows 32/64-bit FFmpeg tools and dependencies
• media-autobuild_suite – Windows Batchscript builds Mingw-w64/GCC ffmpeg and other media tools
• Roxlu’s guide – Compiling FFmpeg with X264 on Windows 10 using MSVC