How to Compile FFmpeg with SVT-AV1

This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough for compiling FFmpeg from source with SVT-AV1 support enabled. By building the latest SVT-AV1 encoder and integrating it into FFmpeg via the --enable-libsvtav1 flag, you can take full advantage of high-performance, multi-threaded AV1 video encoding on Linux-based systems.

Step 1: Install Build Dependencies

Update your system packages and install the necessary compilers, build tools, and development libraries.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
    build-essential \
    cmake \
    git \
    nasm \
    yasm \
    pkg-config \
    libtool \
    ninja-build

Note: SVT-AV1 requires cmake (version 3.16 or newer) and nasm (version 2.14 or newer).

Step 2: Build and Install SVT-AV1

Clone the official SVT-AV1 repository, configure it, and compile the static/shared libraries.

# Create a workspace directory
mkdir -p ~/ffmpeg_build && cd ~/ffmpeg_build

# Clone the SVT-AV1 source repository
git clone https://gitlab.com/AOMediaCodec/SVT-AV1.git
cd SVT-AV1/Build/linux

# Build the library in Release mode
./build.sh release

# Install the library onto the system
cd Release
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

By default, this installs the header files into /usr/local/include/svt-av1 and the library into /usr/local/lib.

Step 3: Export PKG_CONFIG_PATH

FFmpeg relies on pkg-config to detect the SVT-AV1 library. Ensure the path to SvtAv1Enc.pc is exposed to your environment:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"

Verify that pkg-config can locate the library:

pkg-config --modversion SvtAv1Enc

Step 4: Download and Configure FFmpeg

Download the FFmpeg source code and configure the build to include SVT-AV1.

cd ~/ffmpeg_build

# Clone FFmpeg source code
git clone https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg

# Configure FFmpeg with SVT-AV1
./configure \
    --prefix="/usr/local" \
    --pkg-config-flags="--static" \
    --extra-cflags="-I/usr/local/include" \
    --extra-ldflags="-L/usr/local/lib" \
    --extra-libs="-lpthread -lm" \
    --enable-gpl \
    --enable-libsvtav1 \
    --enable-nonfree

Step 5: Compile and Install FFmpeg

Compile FFmpeg using all available CPU cores, then install the binary.

make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Step 6: Verify the Installation

Confirm that the newly compiled FFmpeg binary is available and that the libsvtav1 encoder is recognized.

ffmpeg -encoders | grep svtav1

You should see output similar to:

 V..... libsvtav1            SVT-AV1(Scalable Video Technology for AV1) encoder (codec av1)

You can now encode video using SVT-AV1:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libsvtav1 -preset 6 -crf 28 -c:a copy output.mp4