ffmpeg on Ubuntu

[:http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmpeg/|ffmpeg] is a very useful tool for conversion between various video encodings. If you build it with all the supported libraries, you can convert almost all kinds of video files to the desired encoding. Recently a video that we recorded was handed over to me in VCD format (!). Feisty doesn't seem to like VCDs much: Opening audio decoder: [libdv] Raw DV Audio Decoder Unknown/missing audio format -> no sound ADecoder init failed Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders Cannot find codec 'dvaudio' in libavcodec... ADecoder init failed ADecoder init failed The option left was to rip the VCD: vcdxrip --cdrom-device=/dev/hdb --rip ffmpeg on Ubuntu ships as a package compiled *without* the support for several useful codecs. But [:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ffmpeg|Ubuntu wiki has the exact steps] to recompile ffmpeg with the desired codecs: ./configure --enable-gpl --enable-pp --enable-pthreads \ --enable-libvorbis --enable-libogg --enable-liba52 \ --enable-libgsm --enable-dc1394 \ --disable-debug --enable-shared --enable-libxvid \ --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame \ --enable-libx264 --enable-libfaad --enable-libtheora \ --enable-x11grab --enable-swscaler \ --prefix=/usr/local