FFmpeg developers are preparing to soon release FFmpeg 8.1 with some great new features and other improvements.

The [1]FFmpeg.git's release/8.1 branch has been created and other commits in preparing for FFmpeg 8.1 while pushing the Git master state for post-8.1.

FFmpeg 8.1 is continuing to bring more Vulkan acceleration improvements. FFmpeg 8.1 has [2]Apple ProRes Vulkan acceleration using shaders, Apple ProRes Vulkan-accelerated video encoding, Digital Picture Exchange (DPX) Vulkan hardware acceleration, Vulkan compute codec optimizations, Vulkan software scale "swscale" support, among [3]other Vulkan-related improvements .

[4]FFmpeg 8.1 also introduces initial JPEG-XS support with a JPEG-XS parser as well as JPEG-XS encoding and decoding via the SVT-JPEG-XS project with its libsvtjpegxs library. There is also JPEG-XS bitstream muxing and demuxing included.

Some of the other FFmpeg 8.1 changes include Direct3D 12 AV1 encoder support, EXIF metadata parsing, tiled HEIF support from the FFmpeg CLI, IAMF Projection mode Ambisonic Audio Elements muxing and demuxing, and experimental [5]xHE-AAC MPS212 decoding support.

version 8.1:

- ffprobe -codec option

- EXIF Metadata Parsing

- gfxcapture: Windows.Graphics.Capture based window/monitor capture

- hxvs demuxer for HXVS/HXVT IP camera format

- MPEG-H 3D Audio decoding via mpeghdec

- D3D12 H.264 encoder

- drawvg filter via libcairo

- ffmpeg CLI tiled HEIF support

- D3D12 AV1 encoder

- ProRes Vulkan hwaccel

- DPX Vulkan hwaccel

- Rockchip H.264/HEVC hardware encoder

- Add vf_scale_d3d12 filter

- JPEG-XS parser

- JPEG-XS decoder and encoder through libsvtjpegxs

- JPEG-XS raw bitstream muxer and demuxer

- IAMF Projection mode Ambisonic Audio Elements muxing and demuxing

- Add vf_mestimate_d3d12 filter

- xHE-AAC Mps212 decoding support (experimental)

- Remove the old HLS protocol handler

- Vulkan compute codec optimizations

- swscale Vulkan support

- LCEVC metadata bitstream filter

- Add vf_deinterlace_d3d12 filter

- ffprobe: only show refs field in stream section when reading frames

- ProRes Vulkan encoder

- LCEVC parser

- LCEVC enhancement layer exporting in MPEG-TS

Look for FFmpeg 8.1 to release soon and in the meantime those wanting to help in testing the FFmpeg 8.1 development state can do so via [6]git.ffmpeg.org .



[1] https://git.ffmpeg.org/gitweb/ffmpeg.git/shortlog/refs/heads/release/8.1

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Vulkan-Apple-ProRes-Decode

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FFmpeg-Vulkan-Starts-2026

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FFmpeg-Merges-JPEG-XS

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FFmpeg-xHE-AAC-MPS212

[6] https://git.ffmpeg.org/gitweb/ffmpeg.git/shortlog/refs/heads/release/8.1