Guides - Deploy MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg Demo through the Linode Marketplace

The MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg are media encoding tools that use advanced features such as Hybrid GPU acceleration, professional production format, xHE-AAC audio, and MPEG-H 3D audio content creation to help improve visual quality and performance. Use cases include both VOD and live production workflows.

The different MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg enable users to create decoding, encoding, and transcoding workflows or services based on FFmpeg.

The following MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg are included with this deployment:

• Hybrid HEVC Encoder
• HEVC Decoder
• AVC Broadcast Encoder
• AVC Decoder
• VVC Encoder
• MPEG-H Encoder
• xHE-AAC Encoder
• MPEG-2 TS Broadcast Delivery
• MPEG-2 Production Format Encoder

The versions of MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg included in this deployment are free demos. They add a watermark to processed video, limit the multiplexing time, and intermittently mute audio. If you wish to deploy the full versions of MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg, please visit the MainConcept on Linode website.

Deploying a Marketplace App

The Linode Marketplace allows you to easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using the Cloud Manager. See Get Started with Marketplace Apps for complete steps.

1. Log in to the Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

2. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

3. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

4. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has been provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

To verify that the app has been fully installed, see Get Started with Marketplace Apps > Verify Installation. Once installed, follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access the application and start using it.

Configuration Options

• Supported distributions: Debian 11
• Recommended plan: At minimum, we recommend a 16GB Shared CPU Compute Instance for MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg.

MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg Options

Limited Sudo User

You need to fill out the following fields to automatically create a limited sudo user, with a strong generated password for your new Compute Instance. This account will be assigned to the sudo group, which provides elevated permissions when running commands with the sudo prefix.

• Limited sudo user: Enter your preferred username for the limited user. No Capital Letters, Spaces, or Special Characters.

  Locating The Generated Sudo Password

  A password is generated for the limited user and stored in a .credentials file in their home directory, along with application specific passwords. This can be viewed by running: cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials

  For best results, add an account SSH key for the Cloud Manager user that is deploying the instance, and select that user as an authorized_user in the API or by selecting that option in the Cloud Manager. Their SSH pubkey will be assigned to both root and the limited user.

• Disable root access over SSH: To block the root user from logging in over SSH, select Yes. You can still switch to the root user once logged in, and you can also log in as root through Lish.

  Accessing The Instance Without SSH

  If you disable root access for your deployment and do not provide a valid Account SSH Key assigned to the authorized_user, you will need to login as the root user via the Lish console and run cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials to view the generated password for the limited user.

Getting Started after Deployment

Logging In

Once all packages have finished installing, you can log in to your instance to access MainConcept’s FFmpeg installation and plugins.

1. Using the limited sudo user you created during deployment, log in to your instance via SSH. Replace LIMITED_USER with your sudo user and 192.0.2.1 with the address of your Compute Instance:

   ssh LIMITED_USER@192.0.2.1
2. Navigate to the mainconcept directory and view the installed packages:

   cd /opt/mainconcept/
   ls
3. You should see the following:

   ffmpeg-omx  omx  sdk

Command Examples

Below are some example commands using ffmpeg:

• AVC/H.264 video encoding from YUV:

  ffmpeg -r 25.000000 -pix_fmt yuv420p -s 1920x1080 -i "1920x1080p_25p_YV12.yuv" -vf scale=1280:720 -b:v 3500k -c:v omx_enc_avc -omx_core libomxil_core.so -omx_name OMX.MainConcept.enc_avc.video -omx_param "preset=main:perf_level=10:acc_type=sw:[AVC Settings]:bit_rate_mode=0:bit_rate=100000:time_scale=20000000:num_units_in_tick=1000000" "1920x1080p_25p_YV12_ffmpeg.mp4"

• HEVC/H.265 video and xHE-AAC audio transcoding from encoded media file:

  ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v omx_enc_hevc -c:a omx_enc_xheaac -b:v 1000k -b:a 32000 -profile:a 28 -omx_name:v OMX.MainConcept.enc_hevc.video -omx_param:v "force_omx_param=1:preset=main:acc_type=sw" -omx_name:a OMX.MainConcept.enc_xheaac.audio -omx_core libomxil_core.so output.mp4

Next Steps

For more information on using MainConcept Plugins for FFmpeg, including command line formatting, see MainConcept’s official documentation and user guides:

• MainConcept’s official documentation on FFmpeg Plugins

For support regarding the tool or software itself, use the information in the sidebar to contact MainConcept’s support or search the MainConcept community forum.