Sharing codecs / plugins between VLC and FFmpeg

[BarneyRubble]

Hi I have just managed to cross compile a build of FFmpeg for Windows, and I plan to use functions from FFmpeg and VLC in a .NET application using one of the VLC .NET wrappers.

It occurs to me that since VLC uses FFmpeg, it might be possible to build VLC in such a way that it can access FFmpeg's shared libraries instead of having to duplicate many of the codecs again in VLC's Plugins folder. Is this possible? I did find scattered references to '--enable-merge-ffmpeg' but there was no explanation longer than a few words describing what this does.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The VLC build system will automatically favor the dynamic version of FFmpeg or libav if it finds one. This is normal, so there is no specific option.

[BarneyRubble]

Thanks very much Rémi.
Does that mean that VLC will not need to build its plugins folder? I assume you mean it will use the codecs from the FFmpeg .dlls?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

VLC always needs plugins regardless, it cannot use the DLLs directly.