FFmpeg 8.0 Expected to Be Available in Next Weeks in August

FFmpeg, the popular free open-source multi-media library, is going to release the new major 8.0 version in next few weeks in August.

Michael Niedermayer, the project lead announced in last week:

I intend to create the release/8.0 branch in the next 1-2 weeks after that i intend to make teh 8.0 release in the following 1-2 weeks.

Meaning if everything goes well, FFmpeg 8.0 is going to be released in next 2 ~ 4 weeks (in August) from the announced date.

What’s New in FFmpeg 8.0

The full changes for the new release is not ready yet, but according to the current changlog file, FFmpeg 8.0 will include following new features.

First, it improves VVC (aka H.266) decoding by supporting VAAPI hardware acceleration, as well as all content of SCC (Screen Content Coding), including IBC (Inter Block Copy), Palette Mode and ACT (Adaptive Color Transform).

It also adds encoding (through libopenapv wrapper) and decoding support of Samsung’s Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, as well as APV raw bitstream muxing and demuxing.

There are also decoding support of RealVideo 6.0 video codec, and G.728, Sanyo LD-ADPCM, ADPCM IMA Xbox audio codec, encoding support of libx265 alpha layer, and animated JPEG XL images (through libjxl), as well as both decoding and encoding of Hwawei’s OpenHarmony hardware.

Other changes include:

• Pad_cuda filter
• Colordetect filter
• APV parser
• APV in MP4/ISOBMFF muxing and demuxing
• VVC in Matroska,
• CENC AV1 support in MP4 muxer.
• Set default prediction method to PAETH for pngenc encoder.

And, it’s going to drop OpenSSL < 1.1.0 and yasm (use nasm instead) support, and deprecate OpenMAX encoders.

Get FFmpeg 8.0

FFmpeg 8.0 is not ready yet. The branch is not even created at the moment of writing.

For developers or advanced users who want to try out what’s going to be available, just run the command below clone the source code:

git clone https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git

Then, build the package by yourself.