FFmpeg 6.1 Drops a Heaviside Dose of Codec Magic

FFmpeg 6.1's codename is a tribute to the great 19th century mathematician Oliver Heaviside. This version includes support for multi-threaded hardware-accelerated video decoding of H.264, HEVC, and AV1 video using the cross-platform Vulkan API, the next-gen replacement for OpenGL, which was added to the codebase in May. The Register adds: The pace of development of FFmpeg has been speeding up slightly in recent years, given that it took 13 years to get to version 2.0. We can't help but wonder if that's connected with the departure of the former project lead in 2015. The developers are planning to release version 7.0 in about February next year. Even so, the "Heaviside" release, which has been refactored to support even more formats and introduce new methods for faster performance or reduced processor utilization, is smaller than previous releases.

Wow!

[ls671]

Wow! It's sure nice to hear that! I am using ffmpeg version 3.1.1 almost daily for various tasks and it sure is a nifty piece of software! It is also very easy to use in scripts. Maybe I'll upgrade if I need faster speeds due to the new multi-threading capabilities. I don't think I ever used hardware acceleration with it either since my CPU ramps up when using it since I can hear the CPU fan speeding up. I'll have to check if version 3.1.1 uses multiple cores although next time I use it. Does this mean ffmpeg would now be able use the GPU for some tasks? I guess so, great!

 

Re:

[Ferocitus]

Wow! It's sure nice to hear that! I am using ffmpeg version 3.1.1 almost daily for various tasks and it sure is a nifty piece of software! It is also very easy to use in scripts. Maybe I'll upgrade if I need faster speeds due to the new multi-threading capabilities. I don't think I ever used hardware acceleration with it either since my CPU ramps up when using it since I can hear the CPU fan speeding up. I'll have to check if version 3.1.1 uses multiple cores although next time I use it. Does this mean ffmpeg would now be able use the GPU for some tasks? I guess so, great!

It's definitely a step in the right direction.

I'll get my coat.

Re:

[BoogieChile]

Your mileage may vary, but with the CPU doing the encoding, I get 3 frames/sec. Hardware encoding with CUDA, I get 35.

Version number inflation?

[Ichijo]

The pace of development of FFmpeg has been speeding up slightly in recent years, given that it took 13 years to get to version 2.0.

"We're working harder, you can tell because the version numbers are increasing more rapidly!"

Re: Version number inflation?

[Fons_de_spons]

They apologize in the release notes for being later than expected. Sounds like they care about more than the version number alone.

Heaviside, you say?

[smittyoneeach]

I, for one, applaud the body-positive stance of FFMpeg. Now let's throw down some Crumbl.

Interesting feature list

[WaffleMonster]

Personally Vulkan bwdif could be interesting if it allows for realtime DI of HD OTA streams on cheap SBCs.

Here hardware DI sucks leaving combing artifacts or jaggies depending on configuration, interlaced pass-thru is not an option and tiny SBCs don't have power for bwdif in software much beyond 480.

Current feature wish list is fixing Opus multichannel audio issues and merging AC4 decoder for ATSC3 broadcasts.

Re: Interesting feature list

[algaeman]

Vulkan is an API to abstract the hardware features in a consistent, standardized way. If the hardware isn't fast enough, or causes artifacts because of acceleration shortcuts, that's what vulkan is going to give you.

Re:

[WaffleMonster]

Vulkan is an API to abstract the hardware features in a consistent, standardized way. If the hardware isn't fast enough, or causes artifacts because of acceleration shortcuts, that's what vulkan is going to give you.

The point here would be running bwdif on the GPU instead of either running it on the CPU (too slow) or using VPUs DI algorithm (which sucks).

Subject-line ambiguous

[Misagon]

"Drops" as in "gets rid of" or "software release"?

Re:

[ISoldat53]

Buzzword bingo in one sentence.

Lacks AC-4 for ATSC 3

[pnkflyd51]

Looks like still no AC-4 audio support needed for ATSC 3. Ugh.

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/8349

Improving ffplay

[tenplus1]

I like using the ffplay part of ffmpeg and kinda wish that the player would mimic functionality of mpv by giving keyboard shortcuts to enable/disable subtitles and an on-screen gui to allow skipping and subtitle/audio selection.