The VideoLAN Forums

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.

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.

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?

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