ffmpeg/avconv bitstream filter options

[dinkypumpkin]

On 18/04/2012 11:07, Chris Davies wrote:
> I'm running Debian stable (squeeze) with the Debian Multimedia
> respository. I don't have avconv but do have ffmpeg 0.7.11 (package
> version 5:0.7.11-0.2), which recognises -absf but not -bsf.
>
> The official squeeze package version is currently at 4:0.5.6-3 and
> squeeze-backports is 4:0.8-2~bpo60+1. What ffmpeg versions these relate
> to, I'm really not sure.
>
> Are there enough of us running non-Ubuntu systems to have to cater for
> us, too?
> Chris

The squeeze packages come from the original ffmpeg.org version of FFmpeg 
(no avconv), but the squeeze-backports package derives from the 
libav.org fork of FFmpeg.  Making things slightly more complicated is 
the fact that the forks have different version histories even though the 
two repositories have cross-pollinated.  Version 0.8 from libav.org 
(squeeze-backports version) isn't the same as version 0.8 from 
ffmpeg.org.  The new filter argument syntax appeared in the 0.9 branch 
of the ffmpeg.org repository, but it's in the 0.8 branch of the 
libav.org repository, and thus appears in the squeeze-backports build. 
Clear as mud, n'est-ce pas?

Debian and Ubuntu switched to the libav.org fork in early 2011 after the 
Great FFmpeg Schism.  A cursory search suggests RPM-based distros like 
Fedora and OpenSUSE are still using the ffmpeg.org version, so there 
shouldn't be any problems there.  I think everything should be OK for 
you and other Debian/Ubuntu users - without any changes to get_iplayer - 
so long as libav.org continues to provide an ffmpeg binary.  Famous last 
words, probably.