Table of Contents
How to install FFmpeg for FotoWeb, Index Manager, and Color Factory
08. September 2026
Table of Contents
FotoWeb, Color Factory, and Index Manager rely on FFmpeg for video transcoding. They require manual installation of FFmpeg on your Fotoware server(s), as described below.
As the ffmpeg.org website changes its design from time to time, the following directions may not exactly match what you see on the site.
Note
Use the FFmpeg version that matches your Fotoware On-premises release:
- Feature Release 22 and later: FFmpeg 8
- Feature Release 21 and earlier: FFmpeg 4
Earlier releases are not compatible with FFmpeg 5, 6, 7, or 8.
Note
When updating any of our products from version 8.0 to version 8.1, you must reinstall FFmpeg using these instructions. You can also copy the FFmpeg binaries from the old location to the new location.
- Go to https://ffmpeg.org/download/.
- Follow the links to the Windows version, as you want to download executables for Windows.
Several suppliers may be available from which to download FFmpeg. Choose one to go to their website. - Download the Windows 64-bit, static, GPLv3-licensed full release of FFmpeg. The binaries you need are typically shown in a Release section on the vendor website. Select the FFmpeg version that matches your Fotoware On-premises release, as described in the note above.
- Open the downloaded archive and locate the bin folder inside it.
Note: Some of the releases are packaged in 7-Zip format - you can obtain the 7-Zip utility from 7-zip.org (external link) - Copy “ffmpeg.exe” and “ffprobe.exe” to these program folders based on which Fotoware product(s) and versions you're using:
-
9.0 versions
- Index Manager: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\Index Manager”
- Color Factory: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\Color Factory ”
- FotoWeb: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\FotoWeb\Scripts\Python\fotoware\videotranscoder\bin\win8x64”
-
8.1 versions
- Index Manager: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\Index Manager”
- Color Factory: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\Color Factory ”
- FotoWeb: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Fotoware\FotoWeb\Scripts\Python\fotoware\videotranscoder\bin\win8x64”
-
8.0 versions
- Index Manager: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\Index Manager 8.0”
- Color Factory: “C:\Program Files\Fotoware\Color Factory 8.0”
- FotoWeb: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Fotoware\FotoWeb 8.0\Scripts\Python\fotoware\videotranscoder\bin\win8x64”
- Restart the Fotoware services.
If updating from an older version of FotoWeb
Earlier versions of FotoWeb included FFmpeg binaries to enable video and audio transcoding. However, because newer versions of FotoWeb may not work with the previously bundled FFmpeg version, we recommend obtaining FFmpeg and placing the binaries in the correct folder as described above.