FFmpegBuild

Slim FFmpeg xcframeworks for Apple platforms.
Demux, decode, and a thin HLS-fMP4 mux path for AVPlayer bridging. No network stack, no CLI binaries.

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Why

Full FFmpeg builds for iOS land at 40-70 MB because they bundle a TLS stack, encoders, filters, and a dozen protocols your app will never use. For a player, most of that is dead weight. Apple already ships HTTP/3, URLSession, Network.framework, VideoToolbox and AVFoundation. So this build strips out everything you don't need and keeps what you do.

~10 MB per architecture, zero network dependencies, one build script.

In

Library	What it does
libavformat	Demux MKV, MP4, HLS, DASH, MPEG-TS, AVI, WebM, OGG, …
libavcodec	Decode video + audio (with VideoToolbox bridge)
libavutil	Shared primitives
libswresample	Audio resampling / channel remap / format convert
dav1d	Fast AV1 software decoder (separate xcframework)

Out

Anything the app layer should already handle or doesn't need:

• Network / TLS: FFmpeg reads from an avio_alloc_context callback, you wire URLSession to it
• Encoders, except FLAC (kept for the TrueHD / DTS / DTS-HD-MA → FLAC bridge that lets AVPlayer ingest lossless audio)
• Muxers, except MP4 / MOV / HLS (kept for the HLS-fMP4 producer that wraps streams for AVPlayer)
• libavfilter, libswscale, libavdevice
• Programs (ffmpeg, ffplay, ffprobe)
• Hardware accel layers other than VideoToolbox
• Text subtitle rendering (do that in SwiftUI)

Build

./build.sh          # all platforms
./build.sh tvos     # single platform
./build.sh clean    # wipe everything

Needs Xcode 16+ and roughly 10-30 minutes depending on your machine. Both FFmpeg and dav1d sources clone on first run.

Output lands in Sources/ as xcframeworks, ready to consume via Swift Package Manager.

Use

// Package.swift
dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/superuser404notfound/FFmpegBuild", branch: "main")
]

// Target:
.product(name: "FFmpegBuild", package: "FFmpegBuild")

Then import the modules you need: Libavformat, Libavcodec, Libavutil, Libswresample, Libdav1d.

Decoder support

• Video (hardware via VideoToolbox): H.264, HEVC up to Main10 (HDR10/DV Profile 8)
• Video (software): AV1 (dav1d), VP9, VP8, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1
• Audio: AAC, AC3, EAC3 (incl. JOC detection for Atmos), FLAC, MP2, MP3, Opus, Vorbis, TrueHD, DTS, ALAC, PCM
• Subtitles: SRT, ASS, SSA, WebVTT, PGS, DVB, DVD

HDR metadata (BT.2020, SMPTE ST 2084 / PQ, HLG, DV RPU) is preserved end-to-end so the decode pipeline can tag frames correctly.

Size

Per architecture, release configuration:

Target	FFmpeg	dav1d	Total
iOS / tvOS arm64	~9.4 MB	~1 MB	~10.4 MB
macOS arm64	~9.5 MB	~1 MB	~10.5 MB
macOS x86_64	~9.3 MB	~2.8 MB	~12.1 MB

Assembly-optimized paths are enabled where the Apple toolchain permits.

Built with

This package is vibe-coded, assembled and maintained by Vincent Herbst in close pair-programming with Claude (Anthropic). The commit log is the receipt: nearly every commit carries a Co-Authored-By: Claude trailer.

License

LGPL-3.0, same as upstream FFmpeg. App Store compatible when linked dynamically.

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_{Used by AetherEngine.}