RuntimeError: No MovieWriters available in Matplotlib animation

Question

The problem I am getting is in code similar to this example: https://matplotlib.org/examples/animation/basic_example_writer.html

The error:

RuntimeError: No MovieWriters available occurs at Writer = animation.writers['ffmpeg'] in the example above.

I am using mac, I have installed ffmpeg using brew, and even installed it with conda even though I am not using anaconda for this particular code.

I am positive that it is installed - I have used it in terminal to change files but it is not working within the program.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try to specify path to ffpmeg program manually like

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.rcParams['animation.ffmpeg_path'] = '/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg'

You have to put these code lines at the beginning of a script and then use animation Writer .

Answer 2

Not sure why, but in my case here is the one that worked (in my case was on windows).

Initialize a writer:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as animation
Writer = animation.FFMpegWriter(fps=30, codec='libx264') # Or 
Writer = animation.FFMpegWriter(fps=20, metadata=dict(artist='Me'), bitrate=1800) ==> This is WORKED FINE ^_^

Writer = animation.writers['ffmpeg'] ==> GIVES ERROR ""RuntimeError: Requested MovieWriter (ffmpeg) not available""

Answer 3

I have found '/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg' not exists in my computer. so i try this:

 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import matplotlib.animation as animation Writer = animation.writers['pillow'] writer = Writer(fps=15, metadata=dict(artist='Me'), bitrate=1800)

and it works for me