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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.   

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on last line here .. yeah, "we break API, deal with it" in small invisible text ...... Well, actually THIS TIME it was not broken  too badly, but with upcoming 7.x ...... who knows! Previous history tells me it more likely than not.