Updating ffmpeg ...

[Bill Cole]

On 29 Oct 2018, at 23:07, Michael wrote:

> So for what it's worth, after writing this out and going over what it 
> takes, I have ffmpeg finally working:
>
>   x264 @20171225_0 (active)
>
>   x265 @2.8_1 (active)
>   x265 @2.9_0
>
> Something has to be out of date, and at least this is the least out of 
> date.

FWIW, this combination works on High Sierra, and is entirely up to date:

# port installed ffmpeg x26?
The following ports are currently installed:
   ffmpeg @4.0.2_1+gpl2 (active)
   x264 @20171225_0 (active)
   x265 @2.9_0 (active)

I STRONGLY advise removing all outdated inactive ports before doing any 
significant port upgrades and never tell 'port' to skip dependencies 
when upgrading. In this case, the ffmpeg *PORT* does not care about 
which precise version of the x265 libraries it links against but the 
ffmpeg *BINARY* fully specifies the precise version, apparently because 
the x265 maintainers don't understand versioning for dynamic libraries 
or maybe they really change the interface with every minor update...

In short:  *UNINSTALL* all versions of ffmpeg and all outdated versions 
of x265, then re-install ffmpeg, which will use the one true latest 
version of x265 (package version 2.9.0, library version 165.0.0.)

-- 
Bill Cole