ARM-based version of FFmpeg is installed on your MacBook M1.

RuntimeError: No ffmpeg exe could be found. Install ffmpeg on your system, or set the IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE environment variable.

If you’re encountering the “RuntimeError: No ffmpeg exe could be found” error on a MacBook M1 when trying to use FFmpeg in Python, you can follow these steps to resolve it:

Install FFmpeg specifically for the Apple Silicon (M1) architecture. You can use Homebrew, a popular package manager for macOS, to install FFmpeg:Open the Terminal app on your MacBook and run the following command:

arch -arm64 brew install ffmpeg

This command ensures that the ARM-based version of FFmpeg is installed on your MacBook M1.

After successfully installing FFmpeg, you can set the IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE environment variable in your Python code using the path to the FFmpeg executable.Here’s an example code snippet to set the environment variable:

import os

# Set the path to the FFmpeg executable
ffmpeg_path = "/opt/homebrew/bin/ffmpeg"

# Set the environment variable
os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = ffmpeg_path

# Your code that uses imageio

In the above code, "/opt/homebrew/bin/ffmpeg" is the default installation path for FFmpeg on MacBook M1 using Homebrew. If you installed FFmpeg in a different location, make sure to use the correct path.Place this code before using any imageio functions that require FFmpeg. The os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] statement sets the environment variable IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE to the specified path, allowing imageio to locate the FFmpeg executable.

By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the “No ffmpeg exe could be found” error when working with FFmpeg in Python on a MacBook M1.