ffbinaries

ffbinaries downloader

Downloads precompiled ffmpeg, ffprobe, ffplay and ffserver binaries from http://ffbinaries.com.

This module is cross-platform and can be used programatically, i.e. as a build step or in a postinstall script.

New in version 1.0.0

• Updated syntax (see note below)
• Added unit tests (coverage ~80%)
• Implemented various small fixes and improved error handling

Version 1.0.1

• Added linter to ensure consistent code
• Added Coveralls integration
• Increased unit test coverage (~90%)

Version 1.0.2

• Improved support for incomplete arguments in downloadFiles
• Added getBinaryFilename(component, platform)

New syntax

This syntax is introduced in 1.0.0.

With the new syntax binaries to download are specified first (i.e. ffmpeg or ffplay), taking place of the platform argument. Platform has now became a flag.

CLI usage example:

ffbinaries ffmpeg ffplay -p win-64

Programmatical usage example:

ffbinaries.downloadFiles('ffplay', function (err, data) {
  console.log('Downloaded ' + data[0].filename + '.');
});

This change applies to both command line interface and programmatical usage.

If you're experiencing issues please update to the newest version and run ffbinaries clearcache.

You can see the previous syntax documented in v0.1.8.

Platforms

The following platform codes are available:

Windows

windows-32 (aliases: win, windows, win-32), windows-64 (alias: win-64)

Linux

linux-32 (alias: linux), linux-64, linux-armhf (alias: linux-arm), linux-armel

OS X

osx-64 (aliases: mac, osx, mac-64)

You can use aliases as your platform code argument in both CLI and programatically.

Included components

	Mac	Linux	Windows
ffmpeg	v	v	v
ffprobe	v	v	v
ffserver	v	v
ffplay	v	v*	v

(* Only linux-32 and linux-64 builds of ffplay are currently available)

Usage

You can run it from your code or through CLI.

If output argument is specified the binary will be placed there. In CLI it will default to current working directory. Programatically the default is the also the working directory.

If platform argument is missing then the current platform will be autodected and binaries for it will be downloaded.

If components argument is missing then binaries of all available components will be downloaded (see Included components section).

CLI

When installed globally with npm i ffbinaries -g this module will register itself on command line interface.

Arguments

CLI uses the following syntax:

ffbinaries [components] [--platform] [--output] [--quiet] [--version]

Each flag can also be abbreviated in your scripts with -p, -o, -q and -v respectively.

Examples

Download all binaries for your platform

ffbinaries

Download all binaries for a specified platform

ffbinaries -p=mac

Download only ffplay for 64-bit Windows, quiet output

ffbinaries ffplay -p=win-64 --quiet

Download only ffmpeg and ffprobe, version 3.2 for 64-bit Linux, quiet output, save binaries in a specified directory

ffbinaries ffmpeg ffprobe -p=linux-64 -q -v=3.2 --output=/usr/local/bin

Additional commands

There are also ffbinaries help, ffbinaries versions and ffbinaries clearcache.

Programatically

Methods

ffbinaries library exports the following methods:

• downloadFiles(platform, opts, callback) downloads and extracts the requested binaries.

  The opts parameter is an object that can contain these optional parameters: * destination: the path where the binaries will be downloaded to. If not provided it will default to .. * components: an array of string values that describes which components to download. If not provided it will default to all components available for the platform. * version: version of ffmpeg to download * quiet: suppress verbose logs

• getVersionData(version, callback) fetches the full data set without downloading any binaries.

• listVersions(callback) returns the list of available versions from the API

• listPlatforms() returns the list of available platforms

• detectPlatform() returns the platform code of the machine as detected by the module.

• resolvePlatform(input) resolves input to a platform code (matches aliases).

• getBinaryFilename(component, platform) resolves a filename of a binary for a given platform (appends ".exe" in Windows).

• clearCache() purges local cache

Examples

Download all binaries for your platform

var ffbinaries = require('ffbinaries');
var platform = ffbinaries.detectPlatform();

ffbinaries.downloadFiles(function () {
  console.log('Downloaded all binaries for ' + platform + '.');
});

Download only ffplay for your platform

var ffbinaries = require('ffbinaries');
var platform = ffbinaries.detectPlatform();

ffbinaries.downloadFiles('ffplay', function () {
  console.log('Downloaded ffplay binary for ' + platform + '.');
});

Download only ffmpeg and ffprobe, version 3.2 for 64-bit Linux, quiet output, save binaries in a specified

var ffbinaries = require('ffbinaries');
var dest = __dirname + '/binaries';

ffbinaries.downloadFiles(['ffmpeg', 'ffprobe'], {platform: 'linux-64', quiet: true, destination: dest}, function () {
  console.log('Downloaded ffplay and ffprobe binaries for linux-64 to ' + dest + '.');
});

Data source

The API backend is located at http://ffbinaries.com and is powered by this app: https://github.com/vot/ffbinaries-api

The binaries are hosted on GitHub as releases of https://github.com/vot/ffbinaries-prebuilt repo.

TODO

• global installs (-g to save globally)
• add preference to use JSON cache for offline installs (--prefer-cache)
• [help needed] recompile all binaries (all platforms; with and without proprietary codes)