Let me introduce you to ffmpeg first.

ffmpeg is widely used for media format conversions or encoding. You may have seen on Youtube. Whatever media format you upload, it is converted into streaming flash files.(.flv). You can get more information about ffmpeg from http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/

ffmeg installation on Linux may be easy because primarily it is made for Linux not Windows. However some good experts have made it for windows also.

As I worked on ffmpeg, one thing is confirmed that you must have dedicated Windows server to install ffmpeg. There are a lot of changes in the OS and PHP settings.

Right now I will guide you to install ffmpeg on Windows XP. If you want to install it on Windows 2003 server then you can contact me.

Ok, please follow these steps to install ffmpeg on your Windows XP machine.

1- You must have PHP version 5.2.6 or above installed

2- Graphics library GD2 must also be installed.

3- Now download ffmpeg.exe file from this URL http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/builds/

4- Put this file on a base or short location like c:/ffmpeg/ffmpeg.exe this path will be used in DOS commands. So keep it easy and simple.

5- In fact this is the only file required for encoding files. However I am giving you whole application development guide like creating frame images and flash movie player etc.

6- If you switch to DOS simply give a source and destination file like
c:/ffmpeg/ffmpeg.exe –i d:/myfile.mpg d:/myfile.flv /y
It will start converting file.
You must have know-how about the parameters that you have to set for file encoding. This will increase or decrease size and quality of your output file. Read the documentation on this URL. http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html

7- Now come to another thing. It is called ffmpeg-php extension. This extension is made to manipulate encoded files. You can create frames and logo for your output file.

8- You can download ffmpeg-php extension and API documentation from this URL

a) http://sergey89.ru/files/ffmpeg-php/ffmpeg-php-win32-all.zip

b)http://groups.google.com/group/ffmpeg-php-windows/browse_thread/thread/0c46df97c0898f63?pli=1

c)http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmpeg-php

9- Copy all fmpeg-php dll files into PHP "ext" (extensions) folder or System32,
Where the extensions are located.

10- Make this entry in php.ini
[PHP_ffmpeg]
extension=php_ffmpeg.dll

11- Now restart your PC. It’s good, because sometimes IIS restart doesn’t show effect.

12- Take phpinfo() to check that extension is installed successfully. I hope it will be there. J

13- As ffmpeg.exe will be executed from DOS within PHP. There is a function in PHP called exec() for that. However it will not work straight away. Restart your pc in safe mode with Administrator account. Because mostly Windows XP won’t let set security permissions in normal mode. Here is a very good example of setting permissions. http://www.somacon.com/p255.php

14- Ok, everything is done, How should we test that it is working?
here is the code http://www.sajithmr.me/ffmpeg-sample-code

If sample code is printing all the information then your ffmpeg installation is successful and you can carry on with development of your application development.

When working on Home or PC, you might face some issues like slow encoding, It is because ffmpeg encoding requires more resources. You must experiment with small video/audio clips. However on Web servers you can try large files also.

If you are looking for ffmpeg hosting with everything ready then you can try Cirtex Hosting