FFmpeg tools add-on and libx256

    In a bout of recklessness I decided to try how well my RPi4 can handle video compression. I've got a lot of stuff that can be significantly reduced in size (let's face it, a cartoon like The Simpsons doesn't really need to be full HD 1080p video) and HEVC is much better than H264 when it comes to video file size reduction. I know the RPi is not exactly a MIPS-monster, but ffmpeg runs most threads with a relatively low priority and the RPi is sitting idle during the night in any case, so who cares if it takes hours per file in the background? So I installed the ffmpeg tools and cranked up ffmpeg. Error:

    Unknown encoder 'libx265'

    Okay - so this lib is not installed along with the rest of the stuff in the ffmpeg tools add-on. Which is not unreasonable. Yet HEVC compression runs surprisingly well on my old laptop (which has no GPU and is not a top-of-the-line model) so it still might work better on the RPi than one might guess and I'd like to give it a try.

    Is there a way for me to add it manually?

    // FvW

    Quote from mglae

    libx265 is only available for X86_64.

    I hadn't understood that from the relevant ffmpeg docs. I do realize that the SoC in the RPi4 will never be able to do it in hardware, but from what I see a software solution for H.256 encoding should be possible, in fact some efforts in that direction seem to have been underway for a a while (e.g. here and here) albeit not with stellar results so far.

    Oh well. Thanks for clearing that up!

    // FvW