How does one encode a series of images into H264 using the x264 C API?

First of all: check the x264.h file, it contains more or less the reference for each function and structure. The x264.c file you can find in the download contains a sample implementation. Most people say to base yourself on that one, but I find it rather complex for beginners, it is good as an example to fall back on however.

First you set up some parameters, of the type x264_param_t, a good site describing parameters is http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings . Also take a look at the x264_param_default_preset function which allows you to target some functionality without needing to understand all of the (sometimes quite complex) parameters. Also use x264_param_apply_profile afterwards (you'll probably want the "baseline" profile)

This is some example setup from my code:

x264_param_t param;x264_param_default_preset(&param, "veryfast", "zerolatency");param.i_threads = 1;param.i_width = width;param.i_height = height;param.i_fps_num = fps;param.i_fps_den = 1;// Intra refres:param.i_keyint_max = fps;param.b_intra_refresh = 1;//Rate control:param.rc.i_rc_method = X264_RC_CRF;param.rc.f_rf_constant = 25;param.rc.f_rf_constant_max = 35;//For streaming:param.b_repeat_headers = 1;param.b_annexb = 1;x264_param_apply_profile(&param, "baseline");

After this you can initialize the encoder as follows

x264_t* encoder = x264_encoder_open(&param);x264_picture_t pic_in, pic_out;x264_picture_alloc(&pic_in, X264_CSP_I420, w, h)

X264 expects YUV420P data (I guess some others also, but that's the common one). You can use libswscale (from ffmpeg) to convert images to the right format. Initializing this is like this (i assume RGB data with 24bpp).

struct SwsContext* convertCtx = sws_getContext(in_w, in_h, PIX_FMT_RGB24, out_w, out_h, PIX_FMT_YUV420P, SWS_FAST_BILINEAR, NULL, NULL, NULL);

encoding is as simple as this then, for each frame do:

//data is a pointer to you RGB structureint srcstride = w*3; //RGB stride is just 3*widthsws_scale(convertCtx, &data, &srcstride, 0, h, pic_in.img.plane, pic_in.img.stride);x264_nal_t* nals;int i_nals;int frame_size = x264_encoder_encode(encoder, &nals, &i_nals, &pic_in, &pic_out);if (frame_size >= 0){    // OK}

I hope this will get you going ;), I spent a long time on it myself to get started. X264 is an insanely strong but sometimes complex piece of software.

edit: When you use other parameters there will be delayed frames, this is not the case with my parameters (mostly due to the nolatency option). If this is the case, frame_size will sometimes be zero and you'll have to call x264_encoder_encode as long as the function x264_encoder_delayed_frames does not return 0. But for this functionality you should take a deeper peek into x264.c and x264.h .

I've uploaded an example which generates raw yuv frames and then encodes them using x264. Full code can be found here: https://gist.github.com/roxlu/6453908

FFmpeg 2.8.6 C runnable example

Using FFpmeg as a wrapper for x264 is a good idea, as it exposes an uniform API for multiple encoders. So if you ever need to change formats, you can change just one parameter instead of learning a new API.

The example synthesizes and encodes some colorful frames generated by generate_rgb.

Control of frame type (I, P, B) to have as few key-frames as possible (ideally just the first) is discussed here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36412909/895245 As mentioned there, I do not recommend it for most applications.

The key-lines that do frame type control here are:

/* Minimal distance of I-frames. This is the maximum value allowed,or else we get a warning at runtime. */c->keyint_min = 600;

and:

if (frame->pts == 1) {    frame->key_frame = 1;    frame->pict_type = AV_PICTURE_TYPE_I;} else {    frame->key_frame = 0;    frame->pict_type = AV_PICTURE_TYPE_P;}

We can then verify the frame type with:

ffprobe -select_streams v \    -show_frames \    -show_entries frame=pict_type \    -of csv \    tmp.h264

as mentioned at: https://superuser.com/questions/885452/extracting-the-index-of-key-frames-from-a-video-using-ffmpeg

Preview of generated output.

main.c

#include <libavcodec/avcodec.h>#include <libavutil/imgutils.h>#include <libavutil/opt.h>#include <libswscale/swscale.h>static AVCodecContext *c = NULL;static AVFrame *frame;static AVPacket pkt;static FILE *file;struct SwsContext *sws_context = NULL;static void ffmpeg_encoder_set_frame_yuv_from_rgb(uint8_t *rgb) {    const int in_linesize[1] = { 3 * c->width };    sws_context = sws_getCachedContext(sws_context,            c->width, c->height, AV_PIX_FMT_RGB24,            c->width, c->height, AV_PIX_FMT_YUV420P,            0, 0, 0, 0);    sws_scale(sws_context, (const uint8_t * const *)&rgb, in_linesize, 0,            c->height, frame->data, frame->linesize);}uint8_t* generate_rgb(int width, int height, int pts, uint8_t *rgb) {    int x, y, cur;    rgb = realloc(rgb, 3 * sizeof(uint8_t) * height * width);    for (y = 0; y < height; y++) {        for (x = 0; x < width; x++) {            cur = 3 * (y * width + x);            rgb[cur + 0] = 0;            rgb[cur + 1] = 0;            rgb[cur + 2] = 0;            if ((frame->pts / 25) % 2 == 0) {                if (y < height / 2) {                    if (x < width / 2) {                        /* Black. */                    } else {                        rgb[cur + 0] = 255;                    }                } else {                    if (x < width / 2) {                        rgb[cur + 1] = 255;                    } else {                        rgb[cur + 2] = 255;                    }                }            } else {                if (y < height / 2) {                    rgb[cur + 0] = 255;                    if (x < width / 2) {                        rgb[cur + 1] = 255;                    } else {                        rgb[cur + 2] = 255;                    }                } else {                    if (x < width / 2) {                        rgb[cur + 1] = 255;                        rgb[cur + 2] = 255;                    } else {                        rgb[cur + 0] = 255;                        rgb[cur + 1] = 255;                        rgb[cur + 2] = 255;                    }                }            }        }    }    return rgb;}/* Allocate resources and write header data to the output file. */void ffmpeg_encoder_start(const char *filename, int codec_id, int fps, int width, int height) {    AVCodec *codec;    int ret;    codec = avcodec_find_encoder(codec_id);    if (!codec) {        fprintf(stderr, "Codec not found\n");        exit(1);    }    c = avcodec_alloc_context3(codec);    if (!c) {        fprintf(stderr, "Could not allocate video codec context\n");        exit(1);    }    c->bit_rate = 400000;    c->width = width;    c->height = height;    c->time_base.num = 1;    c->time_base.den = fps;    c->keyint_min = 600;    c->pix_fmt = AV_PIX_FMT_YUV420P;    if (codec_id == AV_CODEC_ID_H264)        av_opt_set(c->priv_data, "preset", "slow", 0);    if (avcodec_open2(c, codec, NULL) < 0) {        fprintf(stderr, "Could not open codec\n");        exit(1);    }    file = fopen(filename, "wb");    if (!file) {        fprintf(stderr, "Could not open %s\n", filename);        exit(1);    }    frame = av_frame_alloc();    if (!frame) {        fprintf(stderr, "Could not allocate video frame\n");        exit(1);    }    frame->format = c->pix_fmt;    frame->width  = c->width;    frame->height = c->height;    ret = av_image_alloc(frame->data, frame->linesize, c->width, c->height, c->pix_fmt, 32);    if (ret < 0) {        fprintf(stderr, "Could not allocate raw picture buffer\n");        exit(1);    }}/*Write trailing data to the output fileand free resources allocated by ffmpeg_encoder_start.*/void ffmpeg_encoder_finish(void) {    uint8_t endcode[] = { 0, 0, 1, 0xb7 };    int got_output, ret;    do {        fflush(stdout);        ret = avcodec_encode_video2(c, &pkt, NULL, &got_output);        if (ret < 0) {            fprintf(stderr, "Error encoding frame\n");            exit(1);        }        if (got_output) {            fwrite(pkt.data, 1, pkt.size, file);            av_packet_unref(&pkt);        }    } while (got_output);    fwrite(endcode, 1, sizeof(endcode), file);    fclose(file);    avcodec_close(c);    av_free(c);    av_freep(&frame->data[0]);    av_frame_free(&frame);}/*Encode one frame from an RGB24 input and save it to the output file.Must be called after ffmpeg_encoder_start, and ffmpeg_encoder_finishmust be called after the last call to this function.*/void ffmpeg_encoder_encode_frame(uint8_t *rgb) {    int ret, got_output;    ffmpeg_encoder_set_frame_yuv_from_rgb(rgb);    av_init_packet(&pkt);    pkt.data = NULL;    pkt.size = 0;    if (frame->pts == 1) {        frame->key_frame = 1;        frame->pict_type = AV_PICTURE_TYPE_I;    } else {        frame->key_frame = 0;        frame->pict_type = AV_PICTURE_TYPE_P;    }    ret = avcodec_encode_video2(c, &pkt, frame, &got_output);    if (ret < 0) {        fprintf(stderr, "Error encoding frame\n");        exit(1);    }    if (got_output) {        fwrite(pkt.data, 1, pkt.size, file);        av_packet_unref(&pkt);    }}/* Represents the main loop of an application which generates one frame per loop. */static void encode_example(const char *filename, int codec_id) {    int pts;    int width = 320;    int height = 240;    uint8_t *rgb = NULL;    ffmpeg_encoder_start(filename, codec_id, 25, width, height);    for (pts = 0; pts < 100; pts++) {        frame->pts = pts;        rgb = generate_rgb(width, height, pts, rgb);        ffmpeg_encoder_encode_frame(rgb);    }    ffmpeg_encoder_finish();}int main(void) {    avcodec_register_all();    encode_example("tmp.h264", AV_CODEC_ID_H264);    encode_example("tmp.mpg", AV_CODEC_ID_MPEG1VIDEO);    return 0;}

Compile and run with:

gcc -o main.out -std=c99 -Wextra main.c -lavcodec -lswscale -lavutil./main.outffplay tmp.mpgffplay tmp.h264

Tested on Ubuntu 16.04. GitHub upstream.