Watch the video:

0:00 - Explanation
0:42 - Finding downloads
1:00 - gyan.dev FFMPEG download guide
2:16 - 7-Zip Install
2:32 - BtbN FFMPEG download guide
4:05 - Installing FFMPEG
4:51 - Adding FFMPEG to PATH
5:40 - Checking if FFMPEG is installed

Installing FFMPEG

There isn’t an exe installer, like other programs. The install steps are a little different, but when it’s done you can run it pretty much anywhere from the command line. It’s really easy.

The method for downloading FFmpeg has changed since the original video was created and the website previously used, xeronode.com, is no longer available.

One-line install for FFMPEG

This can get a LOT simpler. I have created a simple PowerShell script to download and ‘install’ FFMPEG.

Just open PowerShell as admin, and urn the following command:

Here is a video guide on what this command does: https://youtu.be/EyIIvctDhYc

Downloading FFMPEG

To download FFmpeg, go to ffmpeg.org and click the “Download” button. From there, you’ll need to pick a link to download from, you can select either the “diane.dev” or “btvn” downloads for FFmpeg. The “git” downloads are built from the master branch and are the most cutting-edge, while the “release” downloads are built from the latest release and are more stable. There are also “full” and “essential” versions of FFmpeg available for download, with the full version including a larger set of libraries and the essential version including only commonly used libraries.

The sites available are: BtbN and gyan.dev.

Installing FFMPEG

Once you have picked an FFMPEG zip to download, unzip the FFmpeg download using the 7-Zip program. Take note of the licenses associated with the different FFmpeg downloads and pay attention to the file names, as the file names at the beginning of the download links indicate whether the download is a nightly build or an official release.

There are many different distrubutions containing different codecs and the rest, I usually pick the biggest to get everything.

You may need a program like 7-Zip to unzip some archives (mostly being .7z files).

After unzipping the FFmpeg download, navigate into the “bin” folder, within the FFmpeg folder, as this is where the FFmpeg binaries are located. You can install FFmpeg by creating a folder we’ll later let Windows know where it is. I’ll create C:\PATH_Programs or C:\FFmpeg, but note that it can be installed in any location on the computer.

Linking with Windows

For Windows to know where FFMPEG is installed, we need to add it to the PATH.

To add a folder to the PATH in Windows 10, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Open the Start menu and type “Environment Variables” in the search bar.
2. Click on “Edit the system environment variables”
3. In the System Properties window, click on the “Environment Variables” button
4. Scroll down the list of “System variables” and find the “Path” variable, then click “Edit”
5. Click “New” and add the path of the folder that you want to add to the PATH.
6. Click “OK” to close all the windows.

You may need to restart your command prompt or powershell for the changes to take effect.

Conclusion

Now, to run FFMPEG, open a command line, terminal or CMD window anywhere and run ffmpeg. If you see a response, then it’s successfully installed.