RadioPlayer/tools/ffmpeg

FFmpeg (Optional) for Native Playback

The native player uses an external FFmpeg binary to decode radio streams.

Why this exists

• The app intentionally does not download or embed FFmpeg automatically.
• You provide FFmpeg yourself (license/compliance-friendly).

How the app finds FFmpeg

At runtime it searches in this order:

1. RADIOPLAYER_FFMPEG environment variable (absolute or relative path)
2. Next to the application executable (Windows: ffmpeg.exe, macOS/Linux: ffmpeg)
3. Common bundle resource folders relative to the executable:
   • resources/ffmpeg(.exe)
   • Resources/ffmpeg(.exe)
   • ../resources/ffmpeg(.exe)
   • ../Resources/ffmpeg(.exe)
4. Your system PATH

Recommended setup (Windows dev)

• Put ffmpeg.exe somewhere stable, then set:

RADIOPLAYER_FFMPEG=C:\\path\\to\\ffmpeg.exe

Or copy ffmpeg.exe next to the built app binary:

• src-tauri/target/debug/ffmpeg.exe (dev)
• src-tauri/target/release/ffmpeg.exe (release)

Optional: download helper (Windows)

You can also run:

npm run ffmpeg:download

This downloads a prebuilt FFmpeg zip and extracts ffmpeg.exe into tools/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe.

Notes

• The player will fail fast with a clear error if FFmpeg is missing.
• The project already includes a copy step (tools/copy-ffmpeg.js) that runs before tauri/build and places FFmpeg into src-tauri/resources/ for bundling.