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Adding FFmpeg and FFprobe to your PATH on Windows

Some parts of Sofie (specifically the Package Manager) require that FFmpeg and FFprobe be available in your PATH environment variable. This guide will go over how to download these executables and add them to your PATH.

Installation​

  1. FFmpeg and FFprobe can be downloaded from the FFmpeg Downloads page under the "Get packages & executable files" heading. At the time of writing, there are two sources of Windows builds: gyan.dev and BtbN -- either one will work.

  2. Once downloaded, extract the archive to some place permanent such as C:\Program Files\FFmpeg.

    • You should end up with a bin folder inside of C:\Program Files\FFmpeg and in that bin folder should be three executables: ffmpeg.exe, ffprobe.exe, and ffplay.exe.

  3. Open your Start Menu and type path. An option named "Edit the system environment variables" should come up. Click on that option to open the System Properties menu.

    Start Menu screenshot

  4. In the System Properties menu, click the "Environment Varibles..." button at the bottom of the "Advanced" tab.

    System Properties screenshot

  5. If you installed FFmpeg and FFprobe to a system-wide location such as C:\Program Files\FFmpeg, select and edit the Path variable under the "System variables" heading. Else, if you installed them to some place specific to your user account, edit the Path variable under the "User variables for <YOUR ACCOUNT NAME>" heading.

    Environment Variables screenshot

  6. In the window that pops up when you click "Edit...", click "New" and enter the path to the bin folder you extracted earlier. Then, click OK to add it.

    Edit environment variable screenshot

  7. Click "OK" to close the Environment Variables window, and then click "OK" again to close the System Properties window.

  8. Verify that it worked by opening a Command Prompt and executing the following commands:

    ffmpeg -version
    ffprobe -version

    If you see version output from both of those commands, then you are all set! If not, double check the paths you entered and try restarting your computer.