Installing FFmpeg on Windows Server

Ffmpeg is a software used to handle different kind of multimedia data. It allows convertion of different formats to one another. First to do is downloading from here the appropriate FFmpeg build, according to your system. To find out this, go to Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System and Security - > System. Here you will find out if your system is 32-bit or 64-bit arhitecture. After download is complete, create a folder where your files and libraries will be held. For example: /ffmpeg/ Extract (unzip) your FFmpeg files to this directory. System PATH has to be edited in order to inform Windows about the location of Ffmpeg executables and libraries. Go to : Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System and Maintanence -> System ->Advanced System Settings -> Environmental Variables -> PATH edit system variables according to the location of your ffmeg folder/files and your system version: for 32 bit version: ;C:\FFmpeg\ffmpeg-20120706-git-8293a21-win32-static\bin (important to include the semicolon before the path) for 64 bit version: ;C:\FFmpeg\ffmpeg-20120706-git-8293a21-win64-static\bin click OK when done. You will have to reboot your operation system in order the new PATH variables to take effect. This whole operation has to be done with extreme care, because if you delete the wrong information it can cause the windows sytem not to boot any more. The correct installation of the FFmpeg can be tested opening a command line and introducing the following command line: ffmpeg -version If it works, from now on the ffmeg is installed and functional, you can use it from the command prompter. A command line like this:
ffmpeg -i sample.avi -target pal-dvd -ps 2000000000 -aspect 16:9 sample.mpg

will convert an .avi formatted input file to a .mpg file for video players.