ffmpeg*: ability to select ffmpeg version as default

[eirnym (Eir Nym)]

Recently I found that there's two ports: ffmpeg (version 4.x) and ffmpeg6 (version 6.x). I've installed ffmpeg6 and it can't be used as default for some reason. Please add an ability to select ffmpeg6 version as default.

There's port select mechanism to do that and I'd like to use it instead of create manual links

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

Symlinks are already created, so that you can use version 6 commands with a suffix of 6:

$ port installed ffmpeg6
The following ports are currently installed:
  ffmpeg6 @6.1.1_3+gpl2 (active)

$ which ffmpeg6
/opt/local/bin/ffmpeg6

$ which ffplay6
/opt/local/bin/ffplay6

$ which ffprobe6
/opt/local/bin/ffprobe6

We can't make ffmpeg6 the default, as it may break some older ports. But you can simply run ffmpeg6, ffplay6, and ffprobe6.

[eirnym (Eir Nym)]

Hi, could you explain which exactly ports it would break? The port select works perfectly in other cases as I need link only files in /opt/local/bin and not libraries.

My problem is I installed yt-dlp without a hard dependency on ffmpeg and it doesn't recognise ffmpeg6. After manual linking them to versions without 6, it works as expected.

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

Replying to eirnym:

My problem is I installed yt-dlp without a hard dependency on ffmpeg and it doesn't recognize ffmpeg6. After manual linking them to versions without 6, it works as expected.

If yt-dlp is the port that you're interested in, we can add a new variant to utilize ffmpeg6. Is that the only one?

[eirnym (Eir Nym)]

ffmpeg is a big and heavy to update dependency. I won't use variant in yt-dlp.

[eirnym (Eir Nym)]

Could you please explain which exactly ports it would break?

The port select works perfectly in other cases as I need link only files in /opt/local/bin and not libraries.

[eirnym (Eir Nym)]

I searched ports git to find which ports could break and found that almost none of them depends on ffmpeg executables. and I believe that almost none of these would break if ffmpeg6 will be executed rather than ffmpeg4.