MPEG-2 Video Support missing in ffmpeg

Today I tried to encode a MPEG-2 video in Ubuntu 8.10 (intrepid) with the following instruction:

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vcodec mpeg2video -r 25 -s pal -vb 2048 out.mpg

ffmpeg blamed about not being able to encode to mpeg2video.

ffmpeg -formats | grep mpeg2video

gave

 D VSDT mpeg2video

as result, where the E is missing which would indicate the encoding support.
Don't know when exactly this support got lost (ffmpeg also disappeared from Medibuntu repository), but after some investigation I found the solution.
You have to install different packages which include this video codec.

Install instructions

You need to have the multiverse repository enabled (see this post about how to do this from the command line).

sudo -v
sudo aptitude install ~nlibav.+-unstripped.+

If you already have installed the stripped packages, you'll be asked to remove them as they are in conflict with the unstripped one.
Now, the previous instructions give this output

 DEVSDT mpeg2video

and encoding to MPEG-2 works fine.

MediBuntu

Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu) is a repository of packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons.

Its main focus is on multimedia support, something similar to the Combined Community Codec Pack for Windows.

The most interesting feature is a full version of ffmpeg (including MP3 and x264 encoding).

More help on adding the repository and installing individual packages can be found in the Ubuntu online help.

ffmpeg

ffmpeg is a very powerful video coding suite. It is a complete solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec, the leading audio/video codec library. ffmpeg is developed under Linux, but it can be compiled under most operating systems, including Windows.

How to enable mp3 support?

Because of license rights, ffmpeg doesn't include encoding support of mp3 by default.
So we have to recompile it or get a non-free version of ffmpeg.

Install from non-free repository

You can find an already compiled version of ffmpeg in the MediBuntu repository.
It contains a ffmpeg compiled with risky option.

Recompile by yourself

In Ubuntu this can be done quite simply.
Just follow these steps in a shell.

• Install necessary development packs:
  

  sudo apt-get install quilt libsdl1.2-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev liba52-dev
  libdts-dev libimlib2-dev texi2html libraw1394-dev libdc1394-13-dev
  libtheora-dev libgsm1-dev
  liblame-dev libxvidcore-dev libfaac-dev libfaad2-dev libx264-dev



• Download ffmpeg sources:
  

  cd /usr/local/src
  sudo apt-get source ffmpeg
  cd ffmpeg



• The most important step: enable support for mp3, x264, etc:
  

  export DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=risky

  
  
• Build installable debian packages

  sudo dpkg-buildpackage
  cd ..



• Finally, install all generated debian packages:
  

  sudo dpkg -i ffmpeg_0.cvs20060823-3.1ubuntu4+medibuntu2_x86.deb libavcodec0d_0.cvs20060823-3.1ubuntu4+medibuntu2_x86.deb libavcodec-dev_0.cvs20060823-3.1ubuntu4+medibuntu2_x86.deb ... 

  
  Essentially, you have to list all generated debian packages here.
  
  Maybe you could do something like this:
  

  sudo dpkg -i `ls *.deb`

Test the non-free version

That's it. Now we can test the installation:

 ffmpeg -i some_of_your_movies.avi -ar 44100 test.flv

This should convert one of your AVI movies into a Flash Video.
ffmpeg shouldn't claim any longer about unknown codec for output stream 0.1 (the audio one).