Can't import moviepy.editor

Question

i was trying to create an application with python using the moviepy library. I installed it using:

pip install moviepy

I found this from a MoviePy crash-course:

# Import everything needed to edit video clips
from moviepy.editor import *

After trying to run this line i get this error:

Python 2.7.13 (v2.7.13:a06454b1afa1, Dec 17 2016, 20:42:59) [MSC v.1500 32     bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> # Import everything needed to edit video clips
... from moviepy.editor import *
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\moviepy\editor.py", line 22, in <module>
    from .video.io.VideoFileClip import VideoFileClip
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\moviepy\video\io\VideoFileClip.py", line 3, in <module>
    from moviepy.video.VideoClip import VideoClip
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\moviepy\video\VideoClip.py", line 20, in <module>
    from .io.ffmpeg_writer import ffmpeg_write_image, ffmpeg_write_video
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\moviepy\video\io\ffmpeg_writer.py", line 15, in <module>
    from moviepy.config import get_setting
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\moviepy\config.py", line 38, in <module>
    FFMPEG_BINARY = get_exe()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\imageio\plugins\ffmpeg.py", line 86, in get_exe
    raise NeedDownloadError('Need ffmpeg exe. '
imageio.core.fetching.NeedDownloadError: Need ffmpeg exe. You can download it by calling:
  imageio.plugins.ffmpeg.download()

What is the problem here, and how can i fix it?

Answer 1

EDIT: You can now update moviepy to v0.2.3.3 with pip install --upgrade moviepy and it will automatically install ffmpeg when required upon import of moviepy.editor (#731)

---

Run in a python console/shell (e.g. IPython/IDLE shell):

>>> import imageio
>>> imageio.plugins.ffmpeg.download()

Moviepy depends on the library imageio, which uses the program ffmpeg. It needs to download it before it can use it, and you can download it with the above imageio command.