How can I enable mp4/h264 as an output option in Fedora Linux?

Question

I know it is possible to output a render as a video in mp4/h264 (as well as mkv, etc) however, it does not appear as an option for me.

This is blender 2.64.2, on linux (FC17), ffmpeg version 0.10.7:

$ ffmpeg -codecs|grep 264
D V D  h264            H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
D V D  h264_vdpau      H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 (VDPAU acceleration)
 EV    libx264         libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
 EV    libx264rgb      libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 RGB


$ ffmpeg -formats|grep mp4
 D  mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 QuickTime/MPEG-4/Motion JPEG 2000 format
  E mp4             MP4 format

The file /usr/share/blender/2.64/scripts/startup/bl_ui/properties_render.py has the following lines (snipped for brevity):

class RENDER_PT_encoding(RenderButtonsPanel, Panel):

    return rd.image_settings.file_format in {'FFMPEG', 'XVID', 'H264', 'THEORA'}

    layout.menu("RENDER_MT_ffmpeg_presets", text="Presets")

    if ffmpeg.format in {'AVI', 'QUICKTIME', 'MKV', 'OGG'}:
    elif rd.ffmpeg.format == 'H264':

which leads me to believe that it should give me at least those options. How do I enable them? I've looked all over the place and cannot find the solution online.

---

edit:

This is the official fedora build, blender-2.64a-3.fc17.i686.rpm installed from the fedora updates repo.

Answer 1

You can try resetting to factory defaults, but I don't think that will do it. Blender simply didn't have those presets back then.

You will need to update to the latest version of Blender (you could really go back quite a ways and still have it, but I would go for the newest version.)

Try installing this ppa, then sudo apt-get update then sudo apt-get install blender.

You could also get the package from Blender.org, or the newest one from the buildbot.

Considering you have v2.64 and we are now on 2.76, there are bound to be a few changes.

note: with the buildbot, you can download the package and keep it in a folder, running it straight from there, while leaving your old Blender on you devise.

Answer 2

For those of you landing here from google, it seems that the fedora packaged blender does not have ffmpeg support compiled in. As a workaround, you can always do as @UncleSnail suggested and use the buildbot precompile and run it on its own. If you know of an rpm offering of blender that has ffmpeg support, please feel free to edit this answer, or post as a comment and I will edit it.

---

EDIT:

I went at this a bit and created a simple RPM .spec file for those interested in packaging the 2.76 precompiled blender tarballs from blender builder.

Modify as needed. Standard disclaimers, ie, use at your own risk.

And please let me know if you find this useful.

# INSTRUCTIONS:
# extract your tarball, then:
# ln -s /path/to/blender-2.76-1e58af0-linux-glibc211-i686 ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/
#  (or just extract to ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/)
# rpmbuild -bb /path/to/blender.spec

# RESULTS:
# -the rpm installs your new blender installation in /opt/blender_2.76/
# -and drops a symlink pointing to the blender executable in /usr/bin/blender_2.76
#   so you can just run $ blender_2.76
# -this installs a package called "blender_full", I'm not sure how to get it to install
#   without conflict if there's another blender installed

Name:          blender_full
# make sure there are no spaces in the version, as this will be used to create the path
Version:       2.76
Release:       buildbot
Summary:       A fully functional 3D modeling/rendering/animation package
License:       GPLv2+
Group:         Graphics/3D
Distribution:  Fedora Project
URL:           http://www.blender.org/

%define _blender_tarball    blender-2.76-a529ad9-linux-glibc211-i686.tar.bz2
Source0:       https://builder.blender.org/download/%{_blender_tarball}
# Source0:  http://download.blender.org/source/%{name}-%{version}.tar.gz

Vendor:        Blender
Packager:      Blender builder
BuildArch:     i686


# otherwise, it will decide it is providing libGL.so.1  libGLU.so.1, which it technically isn't:
AutoReqProv: no

#Provides:      blender_%{version}
Requires:      libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.11)

# otherwise, it will try to strip our binaries:
%global __os_install_post %{nil}

%define _blender_install_dir    opt
%define _blender_install_path   /%{_blender_install_dir}/blender_%{version}


%description
Blender is the in-house software of a high quality animation studio.
It has proven to be an extremely fast and versatile design instrument.
The software has a personal touch, offering a unique approach to the
world of three dimensions. Blender can be used to create TV
commercials, to make technical visualizations or business graphics, to
do some morphing, or to design user interfaces. Developers can easily
build and manage complex environments. The renderer is versatile and
extremely fast. All basic animation principles (curves and keys) are
implemented.

This is the self-contained buildbot release. This means it only 
(basically) depends on GLIBC 2.11, and that it will install in /opt
by default.


%files

%changelog
* Wed Feb 20 2016 insaner (insaner.com)
- first version of simple spec file


%install

rm -rf  %{_blender_install_dir}
mkdir -p  %{buildroot}%{_blender_install_path}
mkdir -p  %{buildroot}%{_bindir}
ln -s %{_blender_install_path}/blender %{buildroot}%{_bindir}/blender_%{version}
cp -a */* %{buildroot}%{_blender_install_path}

%files 
/*

Answer 3

Fedora ships blender with ffmpeg disabled for stupid legal reasons.

You can rebuild blender from the fedora source rpm with -DWITH_CODEC_FFMPEG:BOOL=ON as root as follows:

# cd /var/tmp
# dnf download blender --source
# rpmbuild --rebuild blender-*.src.rpm

The latter will most likely fail which is fine because that would be the one you already have. Install the BuildRequires:

# awk '/BuildRequires:/{print$2}' ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/blender.spec \
    | xargs -r dnf -y install

Enable ffmpeg, rebuild and install:

# perl -pi~ -e 's/WITH_CODEC_FFMPEG:BOOL=OFF/WITH_CODEC_FFMPEG:BOOL=ON/' \
    ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/blender.spec
# rpmbuild -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/blender.spec
# dnf reinstall ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/blender-[0-9]*.x86_64.rpm

Now you have blender with matroska, h264 etc :)

Optionally versionlock your version:

# dnf install python-dnf-plugins-extras-versionlock
# dnf versionlock blender

Pål

Answer 4

By default, Blender is not compiled with support for the FFMPEG video library. You'll need to recreate the Blender RPM from source with, the appropriate build flag, and install it. The easiest way to do that is:

dnf install ffmpeg-devel
dnf download blender --source --enablerepo=fedora-source
rpmbuild --rebuild blender-*.src.rpm
dnf reinstall ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/blender-*.rpm

The build may fail for lack of a -devel package, just install the listed packages and try again.

Answer 5

For blender 2.79, Instead of -DWITH_CODEC_FFMPEG:BOOL=ON, there is %global _with_ffmpeg 1 on Line 16 of blender.spec which has to be uncommented before building rpm

Answer 6

Due to code changes in upstream ffmpeg, we need one more step in fedora 28:

After "rpmbuild -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/blender.spec" started running,

replace FF_INPUT_BUFFER_PADDING_SIZE, CODEC_FLAG_GLOBAL_HEADER and FF_MIN_BUFFER_SIZE with AV_INPUT_BUFFER_PADDING_SIZE, AV_CODEC_FLAG_GLOBAL_HEADER and AV_INPUT_BUFFER_MIN_SIZE

in ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/blender-2.79b/intern/audaspace/ffmpeg/AUD_FFMPEGReader.cpp and AUD_FFMPEGWriter.cpp