The new FFmpeg 7.0 major release brings parallel processing, MPEG-5 EVC support and more.
FFmpeg, the open-source multimedia framework that enables the conversion, streaming, and playback of multimedia content, has announced the release of its latest version, FFmpeg 7.0. The new version comes after five months of development and includes a wide range of new features and improvements that will significantly enhance the user experience.
Let’s have a look at the new features.
FFmpeg 7.0: Best new features
One of the major updates in FFmpeg 7.0 is the parallel execution of operations for unpacking/packing media containers, decoding, encoding, and applying filters using the ffmpeg command line utility. This feature allows for the simultaneous execution of multiple tasks, resulting in a significant improvement in performance and efficiency, particularly when working with large-scale multimedia projects.
Another notable addition is the support for encoding and decoding video in MPEG-5 format (EVC – Essential Video Coding) using the external library libxevd. This new format provides high efficiency transmission and storage of all screen resolutions, supports video with an extended dynamic range (HDR), and panoramic video in 360-degree mode.
In addition, FFmpeg 7.0 has added unpackers and packers of media containers (demuxer/muxer) for the QOA (Quite OK Audio) format, which is used for transmitting audio with loss of quality. QOA decoding is claimed to be three times faster than Ogg-Vorbis while achieving higher quality and compression levels compared to ADPCM.
The new version also includes unpackers and packers of media containers (demuxer/muxer) for the IAMF (Immersive Audio Model and Format) format, which defines a container for distributing surround sound. The format provides for the transmission of additional information necessary for the operation of sound stage reconstruction and sound mixing algorithms, and takes into account the propagation of sound signals in three-dimensional space to recreate sound as close to natural as possible.
An experimental decoder for the VVC (Versatile Video Coding) format, also known as the H.266 video compression standard, has been added in FFmpeg 7.0. This new format provides high efficiency transmission and storage of all screen resolutions, supports video with an extended dynamic range (HDR), and panoramic video in 360-degree mode.
The ffplay utility has added support for hardware acceleration of decoding using the Vulkan and libplacebo APIs, and the ability to use API D3D12VA (Direct 3D 12 Video Encoding) for hardware acceleration of decoding of H264, HEVC, VP9, AV1, MPEG-2 and VC1 formats has been implemented.
The new version also includes support for the Content URI protocol used in the Android platform, and the requirements for the build environment have been increased, compiling FFmpeg now requires a compiler that supports the C11 standard.
Additionally, FFmpeg 7.0 includes new filters such as tiltandshift, quirc, fsync, aap, dnn backend for creating filters using machine learning models loaded using libtorch, showinfo bitstream filter for debug output of packet information, qrencodesrc handler for inserting QR codes, and many more.
In summary, FFmpeg 7.0 is a significant update that includes a wide range of new features and improvements that will be beneficial for users working with various multimedia formats. Everyday, FFmpeg is used by millions of users across various streaming services and devices. It is teh ultimate multimedia framework available and consumed by many enterprises and open-source products.
This version will soon be released on Debian, Ubuntu and other Linux distribution stable repo. Hopefully, it will arrive within a month or so from today.
Remember: This version is NOT backward compatible. That means, many CLI options and API are removed which are long deprecated. So use caution before upgrading to version 7.0.
You can download the source on this page.
Via FFmpeg News
