Marc Shared FFmpeg Builds

This is my opinionated FFmpeg build fork: a Windows x64 shared FFmpeg package meant to be the practical "just give me the all-in-one build" option.

The goal is simple: keep an updated FFmpeg master build around with as many useful codecs, filters, demuxers, muxers, hardware paths, and helper libraries enabled as is reasonably maintainable. Give or take the occasional upstream breakage, weird dependency, or library that needs extra care.

This repository is based on BtbN FFmpeg-Builds, but the marc-shared variant is tuned for my own Windows use case rather than small download size or a minimal dependency set.

Main Build

The main custom build is:

• Target: win64
• Variant: marc-shared
• Platform: Windows x86_64
• FFmpeg source: upstream FFmpeg master
• Linking style: shared FFmpeg libraries
• Licensing: GPLv3-or-later FFmpeg build, based on win64-gpl-shared
• Nonfree components: disabled; the build does not use --enable-nonfree

In plain English: this is meant to be the maximum-useful Windows FFmpeg build I actually want to run locally while remaining outside FFmpeg's nonfree/unredistributable category.

What It Tries To Include

The marc-shared variant starts from the normal GPL shared Windows dependency set, then layers on additional libraries that are useful but not always present in generic builds.

Examples include:

• Common codec, filter, subtitle, image, audio, hardware, and analysis libraries from the base build system
• Additional Marc Shared libraries such as libspeex, libgsm, libcodec2, liblc3, libqrencode, and libquirc

The exact list lives in scripts.d/ and may change as FFmpeg master and upstream dependencies change. The intent is broad usefulness, not a frozen minimal matrix.

NVENC Compatibility

Marc Shared follows the normal current nv-codec-headers snapshot selected by scripts.d/50-ffnvcodec.sh; it no longer carries a separate Marc-specific NVENC SDK pin or compatibility-policy file. Older FFmpeg release branches can still use the compatibility header snapshots already present in the base build logic.

Release metadata detects the NVENC API major/minor directly from nvEncodeAPI.h inside the exact dependency image and records the header source repository, commit, and SHA-256. NVIDIA driver requirements are deliberately not hard-coded into the build: use the Video Codec SDK requirement corresponding to the API reported in buildinfo.json.

Release Cadence

The release workflow checks upstream FFmpeg every 4 hours.

Scheduled runs skip rebuilding when the latest release already contains the current upstream FFmpeg master SHA. Image rebuilds can also trigger a release build directly when the dependency image changes.

Release versions are timestamp-based:

YYYYMMDD.HHMMSS

Release tags and assets use this pattern:

ffmpeg-YYYYMMDD.HHMMSS-win64-marc-shared
ffmpeg-YYYYMMDD.HHMMSS-win64-marc-shared.zip

That keeps Scoop version comparisons sane while still recording the upstream FFmpeg SHA in the release notes.

Release Validation and Metadata

Published Marc Shared archives are validated on a native Windows runner. The validation suite checks that the packaged FFmpeg and FFprobe binaries start correctly, verifies a required feature baseline, records the exposed encoders/decoders/filters/formats/protocols/hardware accelerators, compares that feature surface with the previous release, and performs short real encode/remux/filter tests using software paths such as x264, x265, SVT-AV1, Opus, FLAC, and libass subtitles.

Hardware encoders such as NVENC are verified as compiled-in features on the hosted runner; they are not executed because GitHub's standard Windows runner does not provide an NVIDIA GPU.

Successful releases gain additional machine-readable and human-readable assets:

• checksums.sha256 - package digest produced by the release build
• buildinfo.json - FFmpeg and builder commits, exact dependency image, compiler/linker information, configure flags, package SHA-256, and detected NVENC API/header provenance
• features.json - structured feature inventory from the packaged FFmpeg binary
• features.txt - human-readable feature inventory
• feature-diff.txt - additions and removals relative to the previous Marc Shared release
• ffmpeg-win64-marc-shared-sbom.spdx.json - SPDX SBOM generated from the contents of the actual published package

The required-feature baseline is maintained in .github/marc-shared-required-features.json. Losing one of those features turns the release validation red instead of silently shipping a reduced build.

Pull requests that touch the Marc Shared build path get a targeted win64 marc-shared dependency/FFmpeg build. The resulting Windows archive is then exercised on a Windows runner with the same runtime and required-feature validator used for published releases. The much larger upstream target/variant matrix remains available as a manual workflow when broader coverage is needed.

Install With Scoop

The intended install path is my Scoop bucket:

scoop bucket add marcmy https://github.com/marcmy/scoop-bucket
scoop install ffmpeg-marc-shared

Update normally with:

scoop update
scoop update ffmpeg-marc-shared

After installing, you can verify the build config with:

ffmpeg -hide_banner -buildconf

Manual Build

Prerequisites

• Bash
• Docker

Build the Marc Shared Image

./makeimage.sh win64 marc-shared

Build FFmpeg From the Image

./build.sh win64 marc-shared

On success, the resulting zip file will be in the artifacts directory.

Targets, Variants, and Addins

The upstream build system still supports the broader target/variant matrix, but this fork's custom automation is focused on win64 marc-shared.

Common targets include:

• win64 - x86_64 Windows
• win32 - x86 Windows
• linux64 - x86_64 Linux, glibc >= 2.28, linux >= 4.18
• linuxarm64 - arm64/aarch64 Linux, glibc >= 2.28, linux >= 4.18

Common variants include:

• gpl
• lgpl
• nonfree
• gpl-shared
• lgpl-shared
• nonfree-shared
• marc-shared - my custom all-in-one GPL shared Windows variant

Optional addins from the base project may still be used where supported, such as release-branch addins or debug builds.

Licensing Notes

The Marc Shared build inherits from win64-gpl-shared and does not enable FFmpeg's --enable-nonfree mode. Its resulting FFmpeg binaries are therefore intended to be distributed under GPLv3-or-later rather than marked nonfree and unredistributable.

libfdk_aac remains disabled. FFmpeg's native AAC decoder and encoder remain available, so normal AAC playback, decoding, and encoding do not depend on FDK AAC or --enable-nonfree.

Redistribution still needs to follow the GPL and the license requirements of included dependencies, including providing the corresponding source and build modifications for distributed binaries.

Notes

This is not an official FFmpeg build, and it is not trying to be the smallest package. It is a personal all-in-one build aimed at having almost everything I am likely to need in one constantly refreshed Windows FFmpeg install.

If a dependency breaks against FFmpeg master, the fix is usually to patch the dependency script, temporarily disable the problematic library, or wait for upstream to settle down. That is the tradeoff of tracking master with a broad dependency set.