Upgrade ffmpeg to 8 by default (#23393)

* Upgrade to ffmpeg 8

* Remove workaround

* Cleanup ffmpeg version resolution

* Include older 7.0 for testing purposes

* include

frigate/config/camera/ffmpeg.py

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ from typing import Union
 
 from pydantic import Field, field_validator
 
-from frigate.const import DEFAULT_FFMPEG_VERSION, INCLUDED_FFMPEG_VERSIONS
+from frigate.util.config import resolve_ffmpeg_path
 
 from ..base import FrigateBaseModel
 from ..env import EnvString
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ class FfmpegConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
     path: str = Field(
         default="default",
         title="FFmpeg path",
-        description='Path to the FFmpeg binary to use or a version alias ("5.0" or "7.0").',
+        description='Path to the FFmpeg binary to use or a version alias ("5.0" or "8.0").',
     )
     global_args: Union[str, list[str]] = Field(
         default=FFMPEG_GLOBAL_ARGS_DEFAULT,
@@ -90,21 +90,11 @@ class FfmpegConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
 
     @property
     def ffmpeg_path(self) -> str:
-        if self.path == "default":
-            return f"/usr/lib/ffmpeg/{DEFAULT_FFMPEG_VERSION}/bin/ffmpeg"
-        elif self.path in INCLUDED_FFMPEG_VERSIONS:
-            return f"/usr/lib/ffmpeg/{self.path}/bin/ffmpeg"
-        else:
-            return f"{self.path}/bin/ffmpeg"
+        return resolve_ffmpeg_path(self.path, "ffmpeg")
 
     @property
     def ffprobe_path(self) -> str:
-        if self.path == "default":
-            return f"/usr/lib/ffmpeg/{DEFAULT_FFMPEG_VERSION}/bin/ffprobe"
-        elif self.path in INCLUDED_FFMPEG_VERSIONS:
-            return f"/usr/lib/ffmpeg/{self.path}/bin/ffprobe"
-        else:
-            return f"{self.path}/bin/ffprobe"
+        return resolve_ffmpeg_path(self.path, "ffprobe")
 
 
 class CameraRoleEnum(str, Enum):

frigate/ffmpeg_presets.py

@@ -465,16 +465,6 @@ PRESETS_RECORD_OUTPUT = {
         "-c:a",
         "aac",
     ],
-    # NOTE: This preset originally used "-c:a copy" to pass through audio
-    # without re-encoding. FFmpeg 7.x introduced a threaded pipeline where
-    # demuxing, encoding, and muxing run in parallel via a Scheduler. This
-    # broke audio streamcopy from RTSP sources: packets are demuxed correctly
-    # but silently dropped before reaching the muxer (0 bytes written). The
-    # issue is specific to RTSP + streamcopy; file inputs and transcoding both
-    # work. Transcoding AAC audio is very lightweight (~30KiB per 10s segment)
-    # and adds negligible CPU overhead, so this is an acceptable workaround.
-    # The benefits of FFmpeg 7.x — particularly the removal of gamma correction
-    # hacks required by earlier versions — outweigh this trade-off.
     "preset-record-generic-audio-copy": [
         "-f",
         "segment",
@@ -486,10 +476,8 @@ PRESETS_RECORD_OUTPUT = {
         "1",
         "-strftime",
         "1",
-        "-c:v",
+        "-c",
         "copy",
-        "-c:a",
-        "aac",
     ],
     "preset-record-mjpeg": [
         "-f",

frigate/record/export.py

@@ -456,7 +456,7 @@ class RecordingExporter(threading.Thread):
 
             diff = max(0.0, float(self.start_time) - float(preview.start_time))
             ffmpeg_cmd = [
-                "/usr/lib/ffmpeg/7.0/bin/ffmpeg",  # hardcode path for exports thumbnail due to missing libwebp support
+                "/usr/lib/ffmpeg/8.0/bin/ffmpeg",  # hardcode path for exports thumbnail due to missing libwebp support
                 "-hide_banner",
                 "-loglevel",
                 "warning",

frigate/util/classification.py

@@ -394,7 +394,7 @@ def collect_state_classification_examples(
 
     # Step 3: Extract keyframes from recordings with crops applied
     keyframes = _extract_keyframes(
-        "/usr/lib/ffmpeg/7.0/bin/ffmpeg", timestamps, temp_dir, cameras
+        "/usr/lib/ffmpeg/8.0/bin/ffmpeg", timestamps, temp_dir, cameras
     )
 
     # Step 4: Select 24 most visually distinct images (they're already cropped)
@@ -566,7 +566,7 @@ def _extract_keyframes(
         relative_time = timestamp - recording.start_time
 
         try:
-            config = FfmpegConfig(path="/usr/lib/ffmpeg/7.0")
+            config = FfmpegConfig(path="/usr/lib/ffmpeg/8.0")
             image_data = get_image_from_recording(
                 config,
                 recording.path,

frigate/util/config.py

@@ -8,7 +8,13 @@ from typing import Any, Optional, Union
 
 from ruamel.yaml import YAML
 
-from frigate.const import CONFIG_DIR, EXPORT_DIR, REDACTED_CREDENTIAL_SENTINEL
+from frigate.const import (
+    CONFIG_DIR,
+    DEFAULT_FFMPEG_VERSION,
+    EXPORT_DIR,
+    INCLUDED_FFMPEG_VERSIONS,
+    REDACTED_CREDENTIAL_SENTINEL,
+)
 from frigate.util.builtin import deep_merge
 from frigate.util.services import get_video_properties
 
@@ -18,6 +24,26 @@ CURRENT_CONFIG_VERSION = "0.18-0"
 DEFAULT_CONFIG_FILE = os.path.join(CONFIG_DIR, "config.yml")
 
 
+def resolve_ffmpeg_path(path: str, binary: str = "ffmpeg") -> str:
+    """Resolve an ffmpeg version alias or custom path to a binary path.
+
+    A bare version alias that is no longer bundled (for example one that was
+    dropped when the default version changed) falls back to the default
+    bundled version so existing configs keep working across an upgrade or a
+    revert. Custom install paths (anything absolute) are used as-is.
+    """
+    if path == "default" or (
+        not path.startswith("/") and path not in INCLUDED_FFMPEG_VERSIONS
+    ):
+        version = DEFAULT_FFMPEG_VERSION
+    elif path in INCLUDED_FFMPEG_VERSIONS:
+        version = path
+    else:
+        return f"{path}/bin/{binary}"
+
+    return f"/usr/lib/ffmpeg/{version}/bin/{binary}"
+
+
 def redact_credential(obj: dict[str, Any], key: str) -> None:
     """Replace obj[key] with the redaction sentinel if a value is saved, else drop.