diff --git a/youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py b/youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py
index e13deab4b..19fc135dc 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ def get_version(executable):
     try:
         out, err = subprocess.Popen(
             [executable, '-version'],
-            stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()
+            stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT).communicate()
     except OSError:
         return False
     firstline = out.partition(b'\n')[0].decode('ascii', 'ignore')