FFMJPEG on windows for video manipulation, Php/Laravel Journey [Part 1]
Tags: laravel, php, windows, learning
Published: 2023-05-11 15:27:13

This is not news on internet: With the exception of those who work in the video/audio software development industry, few people are familiar with [FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/), a widely recognized tool among professionals in this field.

[FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/) is a versatile open-source tool that enables users to decode and encode any video format, allowing for seamless conversion between formats. This powerful tool supports a wide range of audio and video codecs such as **h264, h265, vp8, vp9, aac, opus,** and various file formats including **mp4, Flv, Mkv, ts, WebM, mp3,** among others. Additionally, FFmpeg is compatible with a diverse range of streaming protocols, such as **HTTP, RTMP, RTSP, HLS, and RTSP.**

In summary, [FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/) serves as both a library and a standalone executable that can be utilized in custom video/audio software. An intriguing aspect of [FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/) is its ability to perform complex video and audio manipulation tasks with ease.


In this tutorial and the series of others that follow, I will show you how to work with ffmpeg on PHP and Laravel to manipulate videos. But before that, let me show you the process of installing ffmpeg on your Windows operating system. Note that you can check other blog posts on how to install ffmpeg on your operating system, such as Mac and Linux, because ffmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution for recording, converting, and streaming audio and video.


## How to install ffmpeg on windows 
=> Download the binary file at[ https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/](https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/) or [https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows](https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows)

=> You can extract the files into a folder mainly on **C:\** drive as shown below

![ffmpeg on windows location](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/kzbyevec1nnxco3cl65o.png)

=> Next set a path to **ffmpeg bin** folder so that we can run it on our command prompt. if you are following this tutorial, here is our path **C:\ffmpeg\bin**. check the video below and see if you are following one..

![ffmpeg on windows path](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/oiicc3jeaacw2bqm9vhr.png)

Now we can test by opening our command prompt and type **ffmpeg**

![windows installation prompt](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5fydbhrvhc11h3v72mc8.png)
**Congratulation if what you see on cmd is the same as mine.
**
Now that install FFmpeg on your computer somehow by compiling or installing binary packages and let me give some examples to show how to use FFmpeg.

=> Getting audio or video file information
      `$ ffmpeg -i video.mp4`
=> Converting video files to different formats
    `$ ffmpeg -i video.mp4 video.avi`
=> Converting video files to audio files
   `$ ffmpeg -i video.flv video.mpeg`

**Next tutorial will be how to setup ffmpeg on our laravel project and make use of it.
**
[check out how to start working with ffmjpeg on php or laravel](https://dev.to/donejeh/config-ffmjpeg-for-video-manipulation-on-any-laravel-project-5172)

Thank you for reading, dont forget to drop comment if you face any challenging.