FFMPEG was not found on this machine (all platforms)

[octimot]

Please read this first

FFMPEG is a software that we use to convert audio before feeding in to the transcription models. We have inherited this process from the OpenAI Whisper project, since this is what they use to convert audio.

However, for most use cases in StoryToolkitAI, FFMPEG is not needed.

In other words, you only need it on your machine to benefit from the absolute full functionality of StoryToolkitAI (meaning the last 1%) and only if you're planning to transcribe files that don't use the Linear PCM codec for their audio. As a matter of fact, other formats work without ffmpeg aswell, but we just haven't tested it widely enough to know for sure which ones.

What this means for you

If you're like most users and don't have to deal with very specific file codecs and formats, try to create the transcription_WAV render preset in Resolve following this info, or simply use WAV audio files or any other format that uses Linear PCM for audio when transcribing. Also, make sure that you're audio is mono, to prevent the algorithm from ignoring audio from multiple channels. A if this is good enough for you just ignore the FFMPEG was not found on this machine message.

Let us know what you think

We're planning to remove the error at startup in a future release and have it pop up when FFMPEG is actually needed.

If you think this is a mistake or dealing with non-WAV Linear PCM files is more common than we think, just let us know here.