FFmpeg's Next Release Will Be Exciting With Vulkan Video Decode, More Vulkan Filters

FFmpeg's next release (v6.1) will prove quite exciting with Vulkan Video support merged for decoding H.264, H.265/HEVC, and AV1 content. Plus there are more Vulkan Video features and other improvements in the next version.

Following the collaboration with Red Hat's David Airlie, the Vulkan Video decode support for FFmpeg has been getting into shape -- aligning nicely with the Mesa RADV and Intel ANV drivers maturing in their Vulkan Video capabilities.

There's been a number of Vulkan filters already within FFmpeg while the next release is bringing new Vulkan color, bwdif, and nlmeans filters.

We now have Vulkan video decoding alongside three new Vulkan filters @thekhronosgroup

— FFmpeg (@FFmpeg) May 29, 2023

This next release also has VA-API support on Windows with libva-win32 thanks to that work by Microsoft as part of their WSL effort.

Some of the other changes coming with FFmpeg 6.1 also include a libaribcaption decoder, the "-readrate_initial_burst" CLI option, and other changes as outlined in the work-in-progress change-log.

The FFmpeg 6.1 release is tentatively scheduled for July per the FOSDEM 2023 presentation.