FFmpeg updates and enters its version 5.0. This free framework is able to decode, encode, transcode and play ” pretty much everything humans and machines have created “. It is used as a base by many software, from VLC to Blender via Kodi. If the developers have mainly cleaned up for this version 5.0 (nicknamed “Lorentz”), they have also added some new features.
Some old APIs are being scrapped. In a blog post, Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the president of VideoLAN explains that he is very careful with abandonments and API deletions, which allows users time to update everything. After 4 years without any removals, FFmpeg 5.0 is going free with over 80 removals to avoid clutter in the long run.
In terms of additions, it should be noted that Vulkan support has been greatly improved, the default settings of the AAC encoder have been modified to improve quality and many new filters have been added. Big additions have been made to VideoToolbox support with VP9 and ProRes decoding, as well as ProRes encoding. There are also a few new decoders appearing, including native speex and decoders for MSN Siren, GEM Image and Apple Graphics (SMC).
Jean-Baptiste Kempf explains that version 4.4 will continue to be supported. He now hopes to start on a new schedule with a release every year and an LTS version (which is supported for a longer period than normal) every two years. The complete list of changes in this version 5.0 can be found on the developer site.
