Setting up ffmpeg - mchorse/bbs-mod-wiki GitHub Wiki

Setting up ffmpeg for BBS mod is very important! BBS mod uses ffmpeg to encode videos during video recording, converting mp3 files generated by ElevenLabs to wav, etc..

ffmpeg is a command-line (CLI) media utility that offers a ton of different features to work with media files (pictures, videos, and audio) and different codecs. You can crop, trim, add text labels, apply effects, compress, downscale, and do much more with media.

BBS mod uses ffmpeg to encode captured frames into video files. Writing code that allows to read or write mp4 video files is very very complicated, so ffmpeg makes it very easy (at a cost of extra dependency)!

Setting up ffmpeg

First, download ffmpeg from one of those links:

There was a problem in the past, that Windows build websites were gone, so if the Windows link doesn't work anymore, go to the second link instead and choose Windows build there.

Linux and macOS builds should be straightforward to download (for macOS Download as ZIP), but for Windows, if gyan.dev page is still up, make sure to download one of the release builds. You should download the one that is called ffmpeg-release-full.7z. You'll probably need WinRaR or 7zip to unzip it.

Checking permissions

Before you configure BBS mod to work with ffmpeg, first, you need to test whether ffmpeg works. If you're on:

  • Linux, you know what to do 😉, just run ffmpeg in terminal.
  • macOS, open Terminal.app (you can either look it up in Spotlight, 🔎 icon in top right corner, or go to Finder, press Command + Shift + U, and find Terminal.app there), drag downloaded ffmpeg (which should be in bin/ folder) file into the window, and press enter.
  • Windows, open cmd.exe (either by pressing Window + R, and typing in cmd.exe and enter, or by pressing Window key, and in the search typing in Command Prompt and clicking it), drag downloaded ffmpeg.exe which is in unzipped bin/ folder, and press enter.

If you done everything correctly, the terminal/command prompt should display something close to this:

ffmpeg is working!

If it works, proceed to the next step. If it says something like permission denied, the possible cause of the issue is that your account has limited permissions, which I guess requires an administration access (so your account is restricted). If it says something else altogether, then you did something wrong. Double check the instruction again.

Configuring BBS mod

Once ffmpeg is downloaded and checked for permission to run, if you're on:

  • Windows, move ffmpeg's folder to root of the disk, like C:\ffmpeg\ or D:\ffmpeg\, whatever disk you're using.
  • macOS, move ffmpeg file to documents or any place you won't lose it.

Then, in Minecraft, go to BBS mod's settings, which can be opened by going to Dashboard in any world (0 key by default), and click ⚙️ icon button, in the bottom left corner. Scroll down until Video capturing category, and specify the full path to ffmpeg.exe or ffmpeg file in Encoder path option. In my case, it's C:\ffmpeg-4.4.1-full_build\bin\ffmpeg.exe, for macOS it would be something like /Users/YOUR_USER/Documents/ffmpeg, and for Linux it should be just ffmpeg.

Now try recording by pressing record button (⚪ icon) in the film editor. Wait a couple of seconds, press escape to stop recording, and check the video that was created in the movies folder (you can open it by clicking 🎞️ looking icon in the right vertical icon bar). If it plays fine (you may want to use VLC video player), then you're done!

If there were any error appear, the most possible causes is that either the Encoder path isn't specified to the ffmpeg.exe/ffmpeg binary. Double check this page. Maybe you skipped some step. Alternatively, the issue could be with your account's permission. Try running Minecraft in administrator mode, and see if it helps.

In worst case scenario, feel free to come to BBS mod's Discord server for help.

Hopefully, that was helpful!