Configure FFmpeg

Video Commander uses FFmpeg and ffprobe for Convert, Delivery, and Analyze. Inspect uses native parsers and does not depend on this setting.

Open Settings → Local Tools to choose one of three sources.

System PATH

Use the ffmpeg and ffprobe already available on the system PATH. This is a good choice when the binaries are managed by Homebrew, a package manager, or an organization's workstation tooling.

If the app cannot find them, launch it from the same environment that defines the path or choose the binaries explicitly under Custom Path.

App-managed FFmpeg

On macOS and Windows, Video Commander can download a known build, verify its SHA-256 checksum, and keep it in the app's data directory. The Local Tools page shows the installed build identity and offers update and removal controls.

Version 2026.12.0 rebuilt the macOS build from ffmpeg-builder v9.0.1-4. It encodes 10- and 12-bit HEVC with libx265; the previous build encoded 10-bit input as 8-bit without reporting it. It also includes the feature extractors VMAF v1 needs and a libvmaf whose thread queue is bounded, so Analyze can use every core. The rebuild keeps the FFmpeg version number, so Check for Updates in the FFmpeg section of Local Tools compares checksums rather than versions. Install it if your build was downloaded before 2026.12.0.

On Windows, the app downloads FFmpeg's full build, which includes the SVT-AV1 encoder. The download is about 240 MB.

This copy is separate from any system FFmpeg. Removing it does not affect a Homebrew, package-manager, or manually installed binary.

Custom Path

Choose an ffmpeg executable or the folder containing it. ffprobe must be available beside it. Use this when you maintain a build with a specific codec, hardware API, or libvmaf configuration.

Verify capabilities

Each source is run and checked before it can be used. View capabilities lists the detected version, build flags, video, audio, and subtitle encoders, muxers, hardware acceleration, and other features.

The interface adapts to this result. For example, an unavailable NVENC encoder cannot be selected, and Analyze reports when libvmaf is missing or cannot load the requested model.

Common problems

FFmpeg not found

Confirm that both ffmpeg and ffprobe exist. Select Custom Path when a GUI app does not inherit the same PATH as your terminal.

An encoder is missing

Encoder availability belongs to the FFmpeg build. Pick another encoder or use a build compiled with the required library or hardware API.

Hardware encoding fails

Check that the machine has the matching GPU, that its driver supports the API expected by the FFmpeg build, and that the input format is accepted by the hardware encoder. A software encoder is a useful control test.

VMAF is unavailable

Select a build compiled with libvmaf. Some builds support the v0.6.1 model but not the feature extraction needed by newer model families; Video Commander reports that distinction in Analyze.