November 10th, 2023, FFmpeg 6.1 "Heaviside"

FFmpeg 6.1 "Heaviside", a new major release, is now available! Some of the highlights:

libaribcaption decoder

Playdate video decoder and demuxer

Extend VAAPI support for libva-win32 on Windows

afireqsrc audio source filter

arls filter

ffmpeg CLI new option: -readrate_initial_burst

zoneplate video source filter

command support in the setpts and asetpts filters

Vulkan decode hwaccel, supporting H264, HEVC and AV1

color_vulkan filter

bwdif_vulkan filter

nlmeans_vulkan filter

RivaTuner video decoder

xfade_vulkan filter

vMix video decoder

Essential Video Coding parser, muxer and demuxer

Essential Video Coding frame merge bsf

bwdif_cuda filter

Microsoft RLE video encoder

Raw AC-4 muxer and demuxer

Raw VVC bitstream parser, muxer and demuxer

Bitstream filter for editing metadata in VVC streams

Bitstream filter for converting VVC from MP4 to Annex B

scale_vt filter for videotoolbox

transpose_vt filter for videotoolbox

support for the P_SKIP hinting to speed up libx264 encoding

Support HEVC,VP9,AV1 codec in enhanced flv format

apsnr and asisdr audio filters

OSQ demuxer and decoder

Support HEVC,VP9,AV1 codec fourcclist in enhanced rtmp protocol

CRI USM demuxer

ffmpeg CLI '-top' option deprecated in favor of the setfield filter

VAAPI AV1 encoder

ffprobe XML output schema changed to account for multiple variable-fields elements within the same parent element

ffprobe -output_format option added as an alias of -of

This release had been overdue for at least half a year, but due to constant activity in the repository, had to be delayed, and we were finally able to branch off the release recently, before some of the large changes scheduled for 7.0 were merged.

Internally, we have had a number of changes too. The FFT, MDCT, DCT and DST implementation used for codecs and filters has been fully replaced with the faster libavutil/tx (full article about it coming soon).
This also led to a reduction in the the size of the compiled binary, which can be noticeable in small builds.
There was a very large reduction in the total amount of allocations being done on each frame throughout video decoders, reducing overhead.
RISC-V optimizations for many parts of our DSP code have been merged, with mainly the large decoders being left.
There was an effort to improve the correctness of timestamps and frame durations of each packet, increasing the accurracy of variable frame rate video.

Next major release will be version 7.0, scheduled to be released in February. We will attempt to better stick to the new release schedule we announced at the start of this year.

We strongly recommend users, distributors, and system integrators to upgrade unless they use current git master.