Opera 31 broke the compatiblity with ffmpeg in Ubuntu 14.04

gustavwiz

gustavwiz

That is odd. I never had to compile ffmpeg to have H264 support in Ubuntu. I just had to install ffmpeg.

The problem was that if you had Ubuntu 15.04 and installed the ffmpeg package, it would come with a bug that made Opera crash. So instead we had to compile ffmpeg ourselves, or add another special ppa. But now even those workarounds don't work! As @metallinux said in another thread, this is becoming a nightmare.

matthieu1985

matthieu1985

I've found much simpler workaround than that guide which by the way is totally innacurate because there is no third_party/ffmpeg directory in chromium source code. At least not in Chrome/44.0.2403.107 (Opera Stable) and Chrome/45.0.2450.0 (Opera Developer) even master branch doesn't have that directory.

First you need to either install or download chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra package. You will find it in Ubuntu [universe] repo. Than you need to:

Create lib_extra directory under /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/ (for Opera Stable) or /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera-developer/ (for Opera Developer)
Next copy libffmpegsumo.so from /usr/lib/chromium-browser/ to the directory created in first step
Now rename libffmpegsumo.so to libffmpeg.so.31 (for Opera Stable) or libffmpeg.so.32 (in case of Opera Developer)
Restart Opera

After that MP3 and H.264/MP4 are working for me in both Opera Stable and Opera Developer.

gustavwiz

gustavwiz

@matthieu1985: Thank you very much, this worked, and it was very easy too.

However, it's still bad that you have to rename the file after each upgrade...

A Former User

@matthieu1985:
You can create symbol link:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libffmpegsumo.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra/libffmpeg.so.31

Deleted User

Deleted User

Thank you very much, @adasiko, you are awesome .

matthieu1985

matthieu1985

Yes of course you can create symbolic link instead of the whole copying and renaming but either way you will have to change that symlink when Opera Stable 32 releases to libffmpeg.so.32 and with every new version.

I really hope that Opera developers resolve this bug which I already reported to them a couple days ago.

Deleted User

Deleted User

I've the same issue on Fedora 22. The work-a-round with chromium doesn't work here, because chromium for fedora has no mp4/h.246 support. MP4 videos can only be downloaded.

A Former User

you will have to change that symlink when Opera Stable 32 releases to libffmpeg.so.32 and with every new version.

OK.

Create a new file

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99ownscript

DPkg::Post-Invoke {"/bin/bash /path/to/opera-ffmpeg-updater.sh"; };

A Former User

And opera-ffmpeg-updater.sh

http://pastebin.com/CZHWxgEc

gustavwiz

gustavwiz

@beduine:

Can't you install google chrome then, and use it's H.264 codec?

When you've installed chrome, I think the installation should be here: /opt/google/chrome

avl

avl Opera

@matthieu1985

I've found much simpler workaround than that guide which by the way is totally innacurate because there is no third_party/ffmpeg directory in chromium source code. At least not in Chrome/44.0.2403.107 (Opera Stable) and Chrome/45.0.2450.0 (Opera Developer) even master branch doesn't have that directory.

Yes there is: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/third_party/ffmpeg/

The way you've outlined, copying Chrome's binary library, is indeed the solution we hope to arrive at. But notice that 1) it's very likely to break across versions, as Google makes changes to their ffmpeg version (this is why the .31, .32 is added: the libraries are not expected to be completely compatible with each other, using the wrong version you can easily end up with a crashing Opera - the only guaranteed way is to use the version of ffmpeg as shipped with the matching Chrome/Opera version) and 2) it's scheduled to disappear, as Chrome has now switched to statically linking ffmpeg (so future versions of Chrome will not feature a separate libffmpegsumo.so library at all).

you have to follow avl's guide (https://gist.github.com/lukaszzek/ec04d5c953226c062dac) in order to get H.264 support

Credit where credit is due, this guide was made by Lukasz Jagielski, not by me.

As I've explained elsewhere, Opera can't redistribute this version of ffmpeg ourselves due to licensing issues. However, if someone were to create a PPA containing a package created using the guide above, no one would stop you

gustavwiz

gustavwiz

@avl:

Can't you use the implementation of ffmpeg that Firefox use? (OpenH264)

avl

avl Opera

@avl:
Can't you use the implementation of ffmpeg that Firefox use? (OpenH264)

We could use it as an alternative H264 decoder, but notice that OpenH264 is definitely not an implementation of ffmpeg :).

It's a completely different library, and maintaining a video pipeline that uses it would be lots of work (look up how long it took Firefox to integrate it; in terms of Opera, it would be similar to the work needed on Windows and Mac to integrate with their system libraries). In addition, it doesn't solve our problems: although it's able to decode some H264 videos, it doesn't play all profiles, and it doesn't decode any audio, so for most videos you'd still be out of luck. It would be less work (and more rewarding) to try and use the system ffmpeg again.

gustavwiz

gustavwiz

Okay.

(Excuse me, implementation was not the right term. It's perhaps more of a variant.)

minho

minho

I have the same problem in my Antergos (Arch-based).

I hope for a definitive solution soon.

Deleted User

Deleted User

Trying to make Firefox run 1080p 60fps videos on Linux (since MSE is not full implemented in Firefox, it can't reproduce 1080p 60fps videos with VP9, this happens on Windows too), I discover that Firefox uses some libs (libav) that are installed with VLC to play 1080p 60fps videos with MP4 codec. So Opera could do the same? @avl

A Former User

@sidneyneto

Firefox uses gstreamer (may be libav over gstreamer)
And libav is fork of ffmpeg.
So there's no reason for this ...

kgiii

kgiii

@avl

As a lark I tried it with the Opera beta build and can confirm that it worked. Rather nifty. Thanks for the fix.

gustavwiz

gustavwiz

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OperaBrowser

Updated

Instructions on how to fix H.264 support.

kgiii

kgiii

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OperaBrowser
Updated

Instructions on how to fix H.264 support.

I like that, thanks. I've added it to my bookmarks because I'm pretty forgetful. It works with the beta and dev versions just fine AFAIK. I used a marginally different process but it worked well enough. I've lately been poking at Lubuntu and have been pretty happy so I think I'll stick to this distro for a little while though I'll surely move on to another one soon enough.