Updating ffmpeg from yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds instead of the standard FFmpeg builds?

[Riman85]

There exists a branch of FFmpeg static auto-builds that are specifically intended to work with yt-dlp, i.e. include "patches necessary for smooth integration with yt-dlp": https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds

I would like to make the suggestion that ytdlp-interface should update the FFmpeg builds from that branch instead of the vanilla FFmpeg builds. At the moment I do this manually.

What do you guys think about that?

[ErrorFlynn]

The program has always updated FFmpeg from https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds. If you hover the mouse cursor over the Update FFmpeg button, you can see a tooltip with the URL of the archive that is to be downloaded.

[ErrorFlynn]

That's weird. I wasn't able to reproduce it, so some unusual circumstance must have happened on your end. Are you able to do it again?

Also, I should mention that for Windows 7, the program uses https://github.com/kusaanko/FFmpeg-Auto-Build because https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds doesn't run on Windows 7. But I don't imagine that applies to you.

[Riman85]

That's weird. I wasn't able to reproduce it, so some unusual circumstance must have happened on your end. Are you able to do it again?

Also, I should mention that for Windows 7, the program uses https://github.com/kusaanko/FFmpeg-Auto-Build because https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds doesn't run on Windows 7. But I don't imagine that applies to you.

For the first part I need to check again and get back to you, brb.

For the second part, no, you are right, it does not apply to me as I'm using Win 10 x64.

[Riman85]

I think I know what might have happened. Until v2.16.0 (2025-10-11), the program had a bug that sometimes made it download the wrong asset in certain circumstances. That would explain it.

I don't know if my observations had anything to do with that bug, but it's possible if there was such an issue.

Anyhow, I did now a fresh sha256 comparison, there is indeed no mismatch, so everything is as it should be, at least on your side.

HOWEVER, the sha256 values provided by the said yt ffmpeg auto-builds (see https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/tag/latest) do not match the sha256 values I computed on my end... I used several different tools to do that to make sure I am not doing anything wrong and to exclude implementation bugs, but the tools all agreed!

This shouldn't happen and is definitely a source of additional confusion. Even though I am almost sure I would've compared both hash values as calculated on my end, I don't quite remember what I did (it was a while ago as you can see by my original post timestamp), so I cannot entirely exclude the possibility of having only done a comparison with their provided sha256 value.

[ErrorFlynn]

HOWEVER, the sha256 values provided by the said yt ffmpeg auto-builds (see https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/tag/latest) do not match the sha256 values I computed on my end...

Those values are for the archives, not for ffmpeg.exe. Anyway, I'm glad there's no issue with the update process.

[Riman85]

Those values are for the archives, not for ffmpeg.exe. Anyway, I'm glad there's no issue with the update process.

OMG, I feel so silly, the full archive names are even in the sha256 file... I should read more carefully! Sorry for raising noise over probably nothing.