Encode fails when MP4 or MP3 codes are selected on MacOS

[anoniniarz]

mpv version and platform

macOS Sonoma 14.3.1

mpv 0.37.0 Copyright © 2000-2023 mpv/MPlayer/mplayer2 projects
 built on Nov 30 2023 14:35:43
libplacebo version: v6.338.1
FFmpeg version: 5.1.4
FFmpeg library versions:
   libavutil       57.28.100
   libavcodec      59.37.100
   libavformat     59.27.100
   libswscale      6.7.100
   libavfilter     8.44.100
   libswresample   4.7.100

Description

mpv cannot find libx264 and libmp3lame when encoding, suprisingly enough Webm-VP9 works fine so it is somehow communicating with ffmpeg. When I manually encode with libx264 in terminal with ffmpeg everything works correctly.

libx264 is listed in both codecs and encoders after running ffmpeg -encoders and ffmpeg -codecs

V....D libx264 libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 (codec h264)

V....D libx264rgb libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 RGB (codec h264)

V....D h264_videotoolbox VideoToolbox H.264 Encoder (codec h264)

and is enabled with --enable-libx264, same with libmp3lame

but log says [ 7.858][v][webm] "[encode] codec 'libx264' not found."

Log file

https://pastebin.com/YZsiZPAV

[anoniniarz]

Managed to make MP4 work by adding brew's ffmpeg to PATH again, but MP3 still does not work

EDIT: nevermind, it does not work again, even tho PATH is set correctly. I am tired of this system

[frozenpandaman]

Running into this same error. Did you solve this, @anoniniarz? Any ideas, @ekisu?

[anoniniarz]

Running into this same error. Did you solve this, @anoniniarz? Any ideas, @ekisu?

I did not solve it, currently I am just converting to webm and then use ffmpeg to conver to mp4 when I need it. :(

[frozenpandaman]

Looking into this more. I'm able to replicate it just by running the same command manually in my Terminal. The error is:

[encode] codec 'libx264' not found.

Which means it seems to be a specific problem with the --ovc=libx264 parameter. mpv documentation defines that command as "Specifies the output video codec. See --ovc=help for a full list of supported codecs.". Running that command lists these codecs for me:

Available output video codecs:
  --ovc=a64multi     Multicolor charset for Commodore 64
  --ovc=a64multi5    Multicolor charset for Commodore 64, extended with 5th color (colram)
  --ovc=alias_pix    Alias/Wavefront PIX image
  --ovc=amv          AMV Video
  --ovc=apng         APNG (Animated Portable Network Graphics) image
  --ovc=asv1         ASUS V1
  --ovc=asv2         ASUS V2
  --ovc=avrp         Avid 1:1 10-bit RGB Packer
  --ovc=avui         Avid Meridien Uncompressed
  --ovc=ayuv         Uncompressed packed MS 4:4:4:4
  --ovc=bitpacked    Bitpacked
  --ovc=bmp          BMP (Windows and OS/2 bitmap)
  --ovc=cfhd         GoPro CineForm HD
  --ovc=cinepak      Cinepak
  --ovc=cljr         Cirrus Logic AccuPak
  --ovc=dnxhd        VC3/DNxHD
  --ovc=dpx          DPX (Digital Picture Exchange) image
  --ovc=dvvideo      DV (Digital Video)
  --ovc=exr          OpenEXR image
  --ovc=ffv1         FFmpeg video codec #1
  --ovc=ffvhuff      Huffyuv FFmpeg variant
  --ovc=fits         Flexible Image Transport System
  --ovc=flashsv      Flash Screen Video
  --ovc=flashsv2     Flash Screen Video Version 2
  --ovc=flv          FLV / Sorenson Spark / Sorenson H.263 (Flash Video)
  --ovc=gif          GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
  --ovc=h261         H.261
  --ovc=h263         H.263 / H.263-1996
  --ovc=h263p        H.263+ / H.263-1998 / H.263 version 2
  --ovc=huffyuv      Huffyuv / HuffYUV
  --ovc=jpeg2000     JPEG 2000
  --ovc=jpegls       JPEG-LS
  --ovc=ljpeg        Lossless JPEG
  --ovc=magicyuv     MagicYUV video
  --ovc=mjpeg        MJPEG (Motion JPEG)
  --ovc=mpeg1video   MPEG-1 video
  --ovc=mpeg2video   MPEG-2 video
  --ovc=mpeg4        MPEG-4 part 2
  --ovc=msmpeg4v2    MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 2
  --ovc=msmpeg4      MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 3
  --ovc=msvideo1     Microsoft Video-1
  --ovc=pam          PAM (Portable AnyMap) image
  --ovc=pbm          PBM (Portable BitMap) image
  --ovc=pcx          PC Paintbrush PCX image
  --ovc=pfm          PFM (Portable FloatMap) image
  --ovc=pgm          PGM (Portable GrayMap) image
  --ovc=pgmyuv       PGMYUV (Portable GrayMap YUV) image
  --ovc=phm          PHM (Portable HalfFloatMap) image
  --ovc=png          PNG (Portable Network Graphics) image
  --ovc=ppm          PPM (Portable PixelMap) image
  --ovc=prores       Apple ProRes
  --ovc=prores_aw    Apple ProRes
  --ovc=prores_ks    Apple ProRes (iCodec Pro)
  --ovc=qoi          QOI (Quite OK Image format) image
  --ovc=qtrle        QuickTime Animation (RLE) video
  --ovc=r10k         AJA Kona 10-bit RGB Codec
  --ovc=r210         Uncompressed RGB 10-bit
  --ovc=rawvideo     raw video
  --ovc=roqvideo     id RoQ video
  --ovc=rpza         QuickTime video (RPZA)
  --ovc=rv10         RealVideo 1.0
  --ovc=rv20         RealVideo 2.0
  --ovc=sgi          SGI image
  --ovc=smc          QuickTime Graphics (SMC)
  --ovc=snow         Snow
  --ovc=speedhq      NewTek SpeedHQ
  --ovc=sunrast      Sun Rasterfile image
  --ovc=svq1         Sorenson Vector Quantizer 1 / Sorenson Video 1 / SVQ1
  --ovc=targa        Truevision Targa image
  --ovc=tiff         TIFF image
  --ovc=utvideo      Ut Video
  --ovc=v210         Uncompressed 4:2:2 10-bit
  --ovc=v308         Uncompressed packed 4:4:4
  --ovc=v408         Uncompressed packed QT 4:4:4:4
  --ovc=v410         Uncompressed 4:4:4 10-bit
  --ovc=vbn          Vizrt Binary Image
  --ovc=vc2          SMPTE VC-2
  --ovc=wrapped_avframe AVFrame to AVPacket passthrough
  --ovc=wmv1         Windows Media Video 7
  --ovc=wmv2         Windows Media Video 8
  --ovc=xbm          XBM (X BitMap) image
  --ovc=xface        X-face image
  --ovc=xwd          XWD (X Window Dump) image
  --ovc=y41p         Uncompressed YUV 4:1:1 12-bit
  --ovc=yuv4         Uncompressed packed 4:2:0
  --ovc=zlib         LCL (LossLess Codec Library) ZLIB
  --ovc=zmbv         Zip Motion Blocks Video
  --ovc=libopenjpeg  OpenJPEG JPEG 2000
  --ovc=libvpx       libvpx VP8
  --ovc=libvpx-vp9   libvpx VP9
  --ovc=h264_videotoolbox VideoToolbox H.264 Encoder
  --ovc=hevc_videotoolbox VideoToolbox H.265 Encoder
  --ovc=prores_videotoolbox VideoToolbox ProRes Encoder

I'm also at a loss as to why libx264 is not here. Googling "mpv" and "libx264" together only return this Reddit post which I presume is by you or someone else with the exact same issue.

I will note that since "h264_videotoolbox" is installed, you can change line 1059 of the .lua (self.videoCodec = ...) to use this codec instead, which works for my purposes, and indeed results in an .mp4 output file. But technically that is using H.264 and not x264.

[anoniniarz]

Yeah, that was my post. I am lost too why mpv cannot access libx264 codec, I thought that there is a problem with PATH (since I was sometimes able to convert to mp4 when running mpv from terminal), but i am unable to reproduce it reliably and I think my PATH is set correct

I will note that since "h264_videotoolbox" is installed, you can change line 1059 of the .lua (self.videoCodec = ...) to use this codec instead, which works for my purposes, and indeed results in an .mp4 output file. But technically that is using H.264 and not x264.

this sounds great. I will check it out. Good job!

[ekisu]

I'd say it really boils down to whether the mpv build you've obtained was compiled with an FFmpeg with support for x264.

As mpv does not directly uses the ffmpeg system binary, but the libavcodec libraries, it's very possible that those libraries are in a separate instalation (maybe linked statically with the mpv binary, maybe linked dynamically but in a different location from your system ffmpeg), so you'd need to investigate how your mpv build was packaged. You could verify if the installations are different by running ffmpeg -version and seeing if the versions differ from the ones in mpv --version

As the h264_videotoolbox codec is available, I could make the script use it as a fallback if x264 isn't available, although I don't really know if it's as good as x264