What’s the right version of FFMPEG for REAPER?

If you make videos using REAPER on Windows there are two important changes to be aware of in the REAPER 6.43 update
1 – OpenGL support for displaying video in REAPER. This will replace the default DirectShow function soon.
2 – FFMPEG v4.4 support. (not 5.0 yet)

These changes do not affect Mac users.

In this video you’ll learn how to install the correct version of FFMPEG to use with REAPER to allow exporting h.264 videos.

NOTE – 2 weeks after this video FFMPEG 5.0 came out. 5.0 will not work with REAPER.

Links
VLC decoder for playing back video in REAPER (64-bit)
https://videolan.org

Get FFMPEG 4.4 here ( full-shared) *updated link*
https://github.com/GyanD/codexffmpeg/releases/tag/4.4.1

Get 7-Zip to extract the 7z compressed folder.
https://www.7-zip.org/

Instructions

Install 7-Zip

Right-click on the ffmpeg-release-full-shared.7z file and choose ‘extract here’

Find the bin folder inside.

Copy the .dll files and paste to REAPER’s UserPlugins Folder
[ C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\REAPER\UserPlugins ]

Verify installation by checking for available decoder information in REAPER Preferences / Video

And by looking in the Render window for Video FFMPEG. You should see H.264 option there.

UPDATE

The Windows version of REAPER since 6.57 now include support for the Windows Media Foundation (WMF) for video encoding/decoding, which is built into Windows 10 and 11. WMF allows for H.264 rendering and depending on your use, you may not need to install FFMPEG anymore.

updated July 26 2022

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Comments

9 responses to “FFMPEG for REAPER 6.43+ on Windows”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    My version of reaper (6,45) is showing ffmpeg 54.92.100, loaded from the program files\reaper (x64)\plugins folder. How can I persuade reaper to use the new ffmpeg dlls that I’ve put in the userplugins folder as per the instructions on this video?
    Thanks,
    Tim

  2. Nahuel Avatar
    Nahuel

    I´ve the same problem Tim!

  3. Pauli Avatar
    Pauli

    I also had the same problem in Reaper version 6.46, but managed to find a solution. I happened to have an older version (4.3.1) of ffmpeg on my old computer and copied the files instead of the new version and they worked. Seems like Reaper doesn’t recognize the newest version of ffmpeg so your best bet is finding an older version somewhere. If you downloaded version 5.0
    (ffmpeg-release-full-shared.7z) try version 4.4.1
    (ffmpeg-4.4.1-full_build-shared.7z) instead.

    1. Admin Avatar
      Admin

      I show 4.4.1 in the video.

  4. boo boo doggy Avatar
    boo boo doggy

    i had to match reaper 6.46 with ffmpg 4.4.1. older version of reaper and 4.4.1 ffmpg = fail. 6.46 version of reaper and 5.0.0 version of ffmpg = fail. it was pretty particular for me. until i got the right match reaper did not recognize it in the userplugins folder. reaper had the right paths listed in resource path but it did not show up in the render dialog.

  5. Eddie Zuela Avatar
    Eddie Zuela

    I can confirm that version 4.4.1 from the
    ffmpeg-4.4.1-full_build-shared.7z has the compatible .ddl working on Reaper 6.47, win10 21H2.

  6. Tony Avatar
    Tony

    How do I get Reaper to use nvenc hardware encoder. I added “-c:v=hevc_nvenc” to the command window and it was ignored!

    1. Admin Avatar
      Admin

      reaper does not use video card for encoding at all.

  7. Chase Avatar
    Chase

    I followed all the steps and got it to work but now I can’t render my video with AAC or mp3 selected. I get the error no output “target path does not exist” I can render with 24 bit PCM but thats no good for instagram. I end up running my video through the inshot app and it makes it AAC but im losing vid quality. Any solutions? I also have the latest version of reaper as of 7/28/23

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