the new ffmpeg download from Releases · BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds · GitHub contains the version 63. This seems not to be compatible with latest Audacity v3.7.8. Audacity does not find these files.
By now the mentioned repo provided ffmpeg v62 which was accepted by Audacity although the manual Installing FFmpeg | Audacity Support tells it only accepts v61.
Will there be an Audacity update to accept the latest ffmpeg version? And will the manual be updated to correctly show the latest accepted ffmpeg version?
Audacity uses a special version of ffmpeg, see here for any details. Maybe you tell us what special capabilities of version 63 you need to have urgently?
FFmpeg for Audacity was a quite old version - I don’t know whether it still is - and there were security issues with ffmpeg some time ago. That’s why I decided to install a regularly updated release from a repo also mentioned in the support page you linked. My link in the first post goes to the same page.
This support page is not up to date because the current Audacity supports v62.
I try to keep the codec updated as I do with Audacity and all programs. The reason why I need Audacity to support v63 is that I can continue to regularly update ffmpeg.
According to the “official” ffmpeg site, the current version is 8.1.2, and not “v.63” or similar.
You do not need to have ffmpeg installed in Audacity. You still can export inr other formats which do not need ffmpeg and then convert using the “standalone” ffmpeg version or a different utility (I think, iTunes for Windows does it without an additional ffmpeg istallation, as does Music.app for macOS).
If you want a newer version of ffmpeg installed into Audacity, you should direct your wish to the people who made the “adapted” version for Audacity.
Another point… You can have Audacity’s version of ffmpeg set up for Audacity only and some other version for everything else. I doubt any hacker is going to target ffmpeg just for Audacity. There is lower hanging fruit with far more installations.