How can I rebuild the faac package to get mp4/m4a support and higher bitrates?

Question

The copy of faac under Ubuntu Trusty Tahr 14.04 has 2 limitations:

• It does not have mp4/m4a support
• It cannot use high bitrates

How can I rebuild faac, using correct Debian packaging techniques, to overcome these problems?

References:

• ffmpeg options: -acodec libfaac -ab 192k produce 150kbit files?
• Why doesn't the faac package support mp4?

Answer 1

It is possible to rebuild the Trusty faac package and solve both of these issues as follows:

• Support mp4/m4a by building against an external libmp4v2
• Use higher bitrates by patching faac

Use the following steps:

1. First install the required build dependencies, some build tools and the new dependency of libmp4v2:

   sudo apt-get build-dep faac
   sudo apt-get install build-essential fakeroot devscripts libmp4v2-dev
   

2. Then make a build directory, get a patch to allow higher bitrates with faac and apply that patch:

   mkdir $HOME/Desktop/faac_build && cd $HOME/Desktop/faac_build
   apt-get source faac
   wget http://www.andrews-corner.org/patches/A00-bitrates.patch
   cd faac-1.28
   patch -p1 < ../A00-bitrates.patch
   

3. Appropriately change the packaging information:

   debchange -i
   

   My own editing of this file is as follows:

    faac (1.28-7) unstable; urgency=low
   
      * Patch to allow higher bitrates
      * Compile against external libmp4v2-dev
   
     -- andrew <andrew@corinth>  Sat, 27 Feb 2016 20:21:02 +1100
   

   It is important to make the version number incrementally greater than the repository version or your next update might overwrite your new package!

4. Make proper documentation of the patch:

     dpkg-source --commit
   

   Add a brief description of the purpose of the patch in the dialogue box that opens with this command.

5. And finally rebuild and install the package:

   debuild -us -uc -i -I
   sudo debi
   

And now you have access to higher bitrates with faac and you can output to an appropriately tagged m4a/mp4 container!

References:

• Updating A Deb