node-ffmpeg-installer

Platform independent binary installer of FFmpeg for node projects. Useful for tools that should "just work" on multiple environments.

Installs a binary of ffmpeg for the current platform and provides a path and version. Supports Linux, Windows and Mac OS/X.

A combination of package.json fields optionalDependencies, cpu, and os let's the installer only download the binary for the current platform. See also "Warnings during install", below.

Install

npm install --save @ffmpeg-installer/ffmpeg

Usage examples

const ffmpeg = require('@ffmpeg-installer/ffmpeg');
console.log(ffmpeg.path, ffmpeg.version);

process.spawn()

const ffmpegPath = require('@ffmpeg-installer/ffmpeg').path;
const spawn = require('child_process').spawn;
const ffmpeg = spawn(ffmpegPath, args);
ffmpeg.on('exit', onExit);

fluent-ffmpeg

const ffmpegPath = require('@ffmpeg-installer/ffmpeg').path;
const ffmpeg = require('fluent-ffmpeg');
ffmpeg.setFfmpegPath(ffmpegPath);

Known issues

Warnings during install

To automatically choose the binary to install, optionalDependencies are used. This currently outputs warnings in the console, an issue that is tracked by the npm team here.

AWS and/or Elastic Beanstalk

If you get permissions issues, try adding a .npmrc file with the following:

unsafe-perm=true

See issue #21

Wrong path under Electron with Asar enabled

It's a known issue that Asar breaks native paths. As a workaround, if you use Asar, you can do something like this:

const ffmpegPath = require('@ffmpeg-installer/ffmpeg').path.replace('app.asar', 'app.asar.unpacked');

Compiling ffmpeg for platforms other than your own

If you need to install a version of ffmpeg that differs than your current platform (e.g. compiling a Linux version to upload to AWS Lambda from MacOS), you can use npm install @ffmpeg-installer/linux-x64 --force (substituting linux-x64 with whatever platform you need). Note that if you are compressing your project into a .zip for Lambda, you will need to exclude the other platforms' builds from your archive.

The binaries

Downloaded from the sources listed at ffmpeg.org:

• Linux 32-bit: (20181210-g0e8eb07980): https://www.johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/
• Linux 64-bit: (20181210-g0e8eb07980): https://www.johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/
• Mac OS/X (92718-g092cb17983): https://evermeet.cx/ffmpeg/
• Windows 32-bit (20181217-f22fcd4): https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/static/
• Windows 64-bit (20181217-f22fcd4): https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win64/static/

For version updates, submit issue or pull request.

Upload new versions

In every updated platforms/* directory:

npm run upload

See also

• node-ffprobe-installer - fork of this project that does the same thing for FFprobe