ffmpeg-static

What is ffmpeg-static?

The ffmpeg-static npm package provides a static binary of FFmpeg, which is a powerful multimedia framework used to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter, and play almost anything that humans and machines have created. This package allows you to use FFmpeg without having to install it separately on your system.

What are ffmpeg-static's main functionalities?

Video Conversion

This feature allows you to convert video files from one format to another. The code sample demonstrates converting an MP4 file to an AVI file using the ffmpeg-static binary.

const ffmpegPath = require('ffmpeg-static');
const { exec } = require('child_process');

exec(`${ffmpegPath} -i input.mp4 output.avi`, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (error) {
    console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
    return;
  }
  if (stderr) {
    console.error(`Stderr: ${stderr}`);
    return;
  }
  console.log(`Stdout: ${stdout}`);
});

Audio Extraction

This feature allows you to extract audio from a video file. The code sample demonstrates extracting audio from an MP4 file and saving it as an MP3 file.

const ffmpegPath = require('ffmpeg-static');
const { exec } = require('child_process');

exec(`${ffmpegPath} -i input.mp4 -q:a 0 -map a output.mp3`, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (error) {
    console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
    return;
  }
  if (stderr) {
    console.error(`Stderr: ${stderr}`);
    return;
  }
  console.log(`Stdout: ${stdout}`);
});

Video Compression

This feature allows you to compress video files to reduce their size. The code sample demonstrates compressing an MP4 file using the H.265 codec.

const ffmpegPath = require('ffmpeg-static');
const { exec } = require('child_process');

exec(`${ffmpegPath} -i input.mp4 -vcodec libx265 -crf 28 output.mp4`, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (error) {
    console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
    return;
  }
  if (stderr) {
    console.error(`Stderr: ${stderr}`);
    return;
  }
  console.log(`Stdout: ${stdout}`);
});

Other packages similar to ffmpeg-static

fluent-ffmpeg

The fluent-ffmpeg package provides a fluent API for working with FFmpeg. It allows you to chain commands and options in a more readable and maintainable way compared to using raw command-line strings. It also handles the installation of FFmpeg for you.

ffmpeg

The ffmpeg package is a simple wrapper around the FFmpeg command-line tool. It allows you to execute FFmpeg commands from within your Node.js application. Unlike ffmpeg-static, it does not provide a static binary, so you need to have FFmpeg installed on your system.

ffmpeg-binaries

The ffmpeg-binaries package provides precompiled FFmpeg binaries for various platforms. It is similar to ffmpeg-static in that it provides a static binary, but it may not be as frequently updated or as widely used.

README

ffmpeg-static

Static ffmpeg binaries for macOS, Linux, Windows.

Supports macOS (64-bit and arm64), Linux (32 and 64-bit, armhf, arm64), Windows (32 and 64-bit). The ffmpeg version currently used is 6.0.

Note: The version of ffmpeg-static follows SemVer. When releasing new versions, we do not consider breaking changes in ffmpeg itself, but only the JS interface (see below). For example, ffmpeg-static@4.5.0 might download ffmpeg 5.0. To prevent an ffmpeg-static upgrade downloading backwards-incompatible ffmpeg versions, use a strict version range for it or use a lockfile.

Also check out node-ffmpeg-installer!

Installation

$ npm install ffmpeg-static

Note: During installation, it will download the appropriate ffmpeg binary from the b6.0 GitHub release. Use and distribution of the binary releases of ffmpeg are covered by their respective license.

Custom binaries url

By default, the ffmpeg binary will get downloaded from https://github.com/eugeneware/ffmpeg-static/releases/download. To customise this, e.g. when using a mirror, set the FFMPEG_BINARIES_URL environment variable.

export FFMPEG_BINARIES_URL=https://cdn.npmmirror.com/binaries/ffmpeg-static
npm install ffmpeg-static

Electron & other cross-platform packaging tools

Because ffmpeg-static will download a binary specific to the OS/platform, you need to purge node_modules before (re-)packaging your app for a different OS/platform (read more in #35).

Example Usage

Returns the path of a statically linked ffmpeg binary on the local filesystem.

const pathToFfmpeg = require('ffmpeg-static')
console.log(pathToFfmpeg)
// /Users/j/playground/node_modules/ffmpeg-static/ffmpeg

Check the example script for a more thorough example.

Sources of the binaries

The binaries downloaded by ffmpeg-static are from these locations:

• Windows x64 builds
• Windows x86 builds
• Linux x64/x86/ARM/ARM64 builds
• macOS x64 (Intel) & ARM64 (Apple Silicon) builds

Show your support

This npm package includes statically linked binaries that are produced by the following individuals. Please consider supporting and donating to them who have been providing quality binary builds for many years:

• Linux builds: John Van Sickle
• macOS builds: Helmut K. C. Tessarek