How to build and link FFMPEG to iOS?

Question

all!

I know, there are a lot of questions here about FFMPEG on iOS, but no one answer is appropriate for my case:( Something strange happens each case when I am trying to link FFMPEG in my project, so please, help me!

My task is to write video-chat application for iOS, that uses RTMP-protocol for publishing and reading video-stream to/from custom Flash Media Server.

I decided to use rtmplib, free open-source library for streaming FLV video over RTMP, as it is the only appropriate library.

Many problem appeared when I began research of it, but later I understood how it should work.

Now I can read live stream of FLV video(from url) and send it back to channel, with the help of my application.

My trouble now is in sending video FROM Camera. Basic operations sequence, as I understood, should be the following:

1. Using AVFoundation, with the help of sequence (Device-AVCaptureSession-AVVideoDataOutput-> AVAssetWriter) I write this to a file(If you need, I can describe this flow more detailed, but in the context of question it is not important). This flow is necessary to make hardware-accelerated conversion of live video from the camera into H.264 codec. But it is in MOV container format. (This is completed step)

2. I read this temporary file with each sample written, and obtain the stream of bytes of video-data, (H.264 encoded, in QuickTime container). (this is allready completed step)

3. I need to convert videodata from QuickTime container format to FLV. And it all in real-time.(packet - by - packet)

4. If i will have the packets of video-data, contained in FLV container format, I will be able to send packets over RTMP using rtmplib.

Now, the most complicated part for me, is step 3.

I think, I need to use ffmpeg lib to this conversion (libavformat). I even found the source code, showing how to decode h.264 data packets from MOV file (looking in libavformat, i found that it is possible to extract this packets even from byte stream, which is more appropriate for me). And having this completed, I will need to encode packets into FLV(using ffmpeg or manually, in a way of adding FLV-headers to h.264 packets, it is not problem and is easy, if I am correct).

FFMPEG has great documentation and is very powerfull library, and I think, there won't be a problem to use it. BUT the problem here is that I can not got it working in iOS project.

I have spend 3 days reading documentation, stackoverflow and googling the answer on the question "How to build FFMPEG for iOS" and I think, my PM is gonna fire me if I will spend one more week on trying to compile this library:))

I tried to use many different build-scripts and configure files, but when I build FFMPEG, i Got libavformat, libavcodec, etc. for x86 architecture (even when I specify armv6 arch in build-script). (I use "lipo -info libavcodec.a" to show architectures)

So I cannot build this sources, and decided to find prebuilt FFMPEG, that is build for architecture armv7, armv6, i386.

I have downloaded iOS Comm Lib from MidnightCoders from github, and it contains example of usage FFMPEG, it contains prebuilt .a files of avcodec,avformat and another FFMPEG libraries.

I check their architecture:

iMac-2:MediaLibiOS root# lipo -info libavformat.a
Architectures in the fat file: libavformat.a are: armv6 armv7 i386 

And I found that it is appropriate for me! When I tried to add this libraries and headers to xCode project, It compiles fine(and I even have no warnings like "Library is compiled for another architecture"), and I can use structures from headers, but when I am trying to call C-function from libavformat (av_register_all()), the compiler show me error message "Symbol(s) not found for architecture armv7: av_register_all".

I thought, that maybe there are no symbols in lib, and tried to show them:

root# nm -arch armv6 libavformat.a | grep av_register_all
00000000 T _av_register_all

Now I am stuck here, I don't understand, why xCode can not see this symbols, and can not move forward.

Please, correct me if I am wrong in the understanding of flow for publishing RTMP-stream from iOS, and help me in building and linking FFMPEG for iOS.

I have iPhone 5.1. SDK and xCode 4.2.

Answer 1

I though to write an answer for this question, even it is old, because there is none accepted answer.

According to the given explanation in the question, I assume he was able to compile the source of FFmpeg accurately. If anyone afraid of doing this, there is already compiled version that you can download from here.

Anyway, I believe the error cause because of not giving Header Search Paths in your PROJECT's Build Settings.

What you can do is, add your Xcode project path as to the Header Search Paths key and set it recursive.

And I believe you have to linked all three libraries mentioned below not just the first two.

• libz.dylib
• libbz2.dylib
• libiconv.dylib

Answer 2

To compile FFMpeg for iOS SDK 5.1,

With the AppStore version of XCode (Which changes the script paths), You can use this script.

It worked for me. Also be sure to add to your project "Link Binary with libraries" these:

1. libz.dylib
2. libbz2.dylib

I'm also trying to get the h.264 byte stream from the .mov file while it's being written, so i'd be glad for any tips there on step (2), thanks :)