Using AviSynth+ on POSIX systems

As of version 3.5, AviSynth+ can now be built and used natively on Linux, macOS, and BSD.

AviSynth+ prerequisites

Depending on your OS or distribution, the commands to fetch the necessary prerequisites for building AviSynth+ differ.

At a bare minimum:

  • CMake 3.8 or higher.

  • GCC 8 or higher.

Linux

Ubuntu 19.10 or higher

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake git ninja-build checkinstall

git clone git://github.com/AviSynth/AviSynthPlus.git && \
cd AviSynthPlus && \
mkdir avisynth-build && \
cd avisynth-build && \

cmake ../ -G Ninja && \
ninja && \
    sudo checkinstall --pkgname=avisynth --pkgversion="$(grep -r \
    Version avs_core/avisynth.pc | cut -f2 -d " ")-$(date --rfc-3339=date | \
    sed 's/-//g')-git" --backup=no --deldoc=yes --delspec=yes --deldesc=yes \
    --strip=yes --stripso=yes --addso=yes --fstrans=no --default ninja install

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

18.04 ships with GCC 7, which is not sufficient to build AviSynth+. Adding the following repository will allow installing GCC 9:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake git ninja-build gcc-9 g++-9 checkinstall

git clone git://github.com/AviSynth/AviSynthPlus.git && \
cd AviSynthPlus && \
mkdir avisynth-build && \
cd avisynth-build && \

CC=gcc-9 CXX=gcc-9 LD=gcc-9 cmake ../ -G Ninja && \
ninja && \
    sudo checkinstall --pkgname=avisynth --pkgversion="$(grep -r \
    Version avs_core/avisynth.pc | cut -f2 -d " ")-$(date --rfc-3339=date | \
    sed 's/-//g')-git" --backup=no --deldoc=yes --delspec=yes --deldesc=yes \
    --strip=yes --stripso=yes --addso=yes --fstrans=no --default ninja install

Distributions without checkinstall

Not all Linux distributions have checkinstall in their repositories, either due to a lack of checkinstall working with their package management system or simply due to omission. In these cases, the install step is a little different:

sudo ninja install
sudo ldconfig

macOS

Requires Homebrew:
https://brew.sh/
brew install cmake ninja gcc

GCC isn’t strictly necessary for AviSynth+, but it can side-step the need to use -DENABLE_FILESYSTEM_COMPAT on High Sierra and Mojave.

10.13 High Sierra and 10.14 Mojave

Apple’s libc++ doesn’t support the C++17 filesystem functionality on either of these versions of macOS, so we have to resort to using an external implementation as a submodule.

git clone --recursive git://github.com/AviSynth/AviSynthPlus.git && \
cd AviSynthPlus && \
mkdir avisynth-build && \
cd avisynth-build

cmake ../ -G Ninja -DENABLE_FILESYSTEM_COMPAT:bool=on && \
ninja && \
sudo ninja install

10.15 Catalina

C++17 filesystem support is available on Catalina, so it can be built with the default Clang installation. GCC is potentially useful later on, though, so install that too.

cmake ../ -G Ninja && \
ninja && \
sudo ninja install

FreeBSD

Tested on FreeBSD 12.1.

pkg install cmake git gmake ninja

git clone git://github.com/AviSynth/AviSynthPlus.git && \
cd AviSynthPlus && \
mkdir avisynth-build && \
cd avisynth-build

Building AviSynth+ (GNU Make)

cmake ../ && \
gmake -j$(nproc) && \
gmake install

Building AviSynth+ (Ninja)

cmake ../ -G Ninja && \
ninja && \
sudo ninja install

FFmpeg support

On all of these OSes, AviSynth+ can interface with FFmpeg. This change was applied to the FFmpeg git master branch on 2020-04-05.

To compile a basic build of FFmpeg that supports AviSynth+, the following steps will suffice:

Prerequisites

Linux

Ubuntu

First, enable the Sources repository by either enabling it using the Software Sources dialog or by uncommenting the right lines in /etc/apt/sources.list.

sudo apt-get build-dep ffmpeg
sudo apt-get install nasm libsdl2-dev

macOS

Homebrew prerequisites:

brew install xz sdl2 pkg-config nasm

FreeBSD

pkg install nasm sdl2

Building FFmpeg

git clone git://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
cd ffmpeg

Linux

Ubuntu
    ./configure --prefix=$HOME/ffavx_build --enable-gpl --enable-version3 \
    --disable-doc --disable-debug --enable-pic --enable-avisynth && \
make -j$(nproc) && \
make install

Installing FFmpeg to the system can be done by leaving out the –prefix option and then using the following checkinstall command:

sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion="7:$(git rev-list \
--count HEAD)-g$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)" --backup=no --deldoc=yes \
--delspec=yes --deldesc=yes --strip=yes --stripso=yes --addso=yes \
--fstrans=no --default

macOS

    ./configure --prefix=$HOME/ffavx_build --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-doc \
    --disable-debug --enable-avisynth
make -j$(nproc)
make install

On Catalina, –extra-cflags=”-fno-stack-check” is necessary when using AppleClang as the compiler.

FreeBSD

    ./configure --prefix=$HOME/ffavx_build --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-doc \
    --disable-debug --enable-pic --enable-avisynth --cc=cc
gmake -j$(nproc)
gmake install

Testing the installation

FFplay can be used to preview scripts in a pinch; if mpv or VLC is built against the patched version of FFmpeg, those can be used to play back scripts in a more comfortable player experience.

The easiest two scripts to test the installation are Version or Colorbars/ColorbarsHD.

Version()

Colorbars() # or ColorbarsHD()

And running this script in the test build of FFmpeg:

cd ~/ffavx_build/bin
[create the script in this directory, for ease of testing]

# to play the script:
./ffplay -i test.avs

# to convert as usual:
./ffmpeg -i test.avs [encoding options]

Loading actual video sources will require a source filter. FFMS2 doesn’t require any porting to these OSes, making it the most straightforward option at the moment.

Building FFMS2

FFMS2 doesn’t require any additional prerequisites, so it can be built straight away.

git clone git://github.com/ffms/ffms2.git && \
cd ffms2

Linux

Ubuntu

    PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/ffavx_build/lib/pkgconfig \
    CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/avisynth" \
    ./autogen.sh --enable-shared --enable-avisynth && \
make -j$(nproc) && \
    sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffms2 --pkgversion="1:$(./version.sh)-git" \
    --backup=no --deldoc=yes --delspec=yes --deldesc=yes --strip=yes --stripso=yes \
    --addso=yes --fstrans=no --default

macOS

brew install autoconf automake libtool m4

    CC=gcc-9 CXX=g++-9 LD=gcc-9 PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/ffavx_build/lib/pkgconfig \
    CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/avisynth" \
    ./autogen.sh --enable-shared --enable-avisynth && \
make -j$(nproc) && \
sudo make install

FreeBSD

pkg install autoconf automake libtool m4

    PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/ffavx_build/lib/pkgconfig \
    CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/avisynth" \
    ./autogen.sh --enable-shared --enable-avisynth && \
gmake -j$(nproc) && \
gmake install

Plugin autoloading

AviSynth+ will use two directories for autoloading: the avisynth/ subdirectory where libavisynth.so was installed, and $HOME/.avisynth. The latter of which can hold plugins (and symlinks to plugins) or AVSI files without needing root permissions.

On FreeBSD, procfs needs to be mounted first in order for autoloading to function.

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$ Date: 2020-05-20 12:50:44-04:00 $