'FFmpeg 5.0' is finally released, and changes in the release cycle will be announced

Version 5.0 of the open source multimedia framework 'FFmpeg ', which is widely used in movies and audio applications, has been released.

FFmpeg 5.0 'Lorentz'
https://ffmpeg.org/#pr5.0

FFmpeg 5.0 --Yet another blog for JBKempf
http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2022/FFmpeg-5.0

FFmpeg is a library of movie encoders and decoders, and is very popular because it can process movie files in many formats. The basic terms for movie files such as encoders and decoders are explained in detail in the following articles.

Summary of basic knowledge for handling video digitally, how is video and audio processed on a PC? --GIGAZINE

As mentioned above, FFmpeg can process many movies, so it is used in many applications such as the media player 'VLC media player ' and the recording / distribution tool ' OBS'. Also, FFmpeg alone can be used for video download and conversion. In addition, command line tools such as 'yt-dlp' may have functions that are supposed to be used at the same time as FFmpeg.

Summary of how to use 'yt-dlp' that allows you to download movies such as YouTube and Nico Nico videos with the highest image quality and high sound quality, and age-restricted movies can also be downloaded at once --GIGAZINE

Version 5.0 (codename: Lorentz) of such FFmpeg was released on January 17, 2022. Version 4.0 of FFmpeg was released in April 2018, and it is the first major release in about 4 years.

FFmpeg 5.0 'Lorentz' has been released ????: https://t.co/InguIIGeEJ

A summary of changes can be found here: https://t.co/e9U5l4cnQX

— FFmpeg (@FFmpeg) January 17, 2022

According to Jean-Baptiste Kempf , the developer of VLC media player and the representative of VideoLAN, many of the previously deprecated APIs have been discontinued in FFmpeg 5.0. The main API changes in FFmpeg 5.0 mentioned by Kempf are as follows.

・ Movie and audio become single API in avcodec
-Separate encoding and decoding with avcodec
・ Separate avcodec and avformat
A new callback that allows the encoder to output data to a user-managed buffer
-Added AVFrame-based API to swscale
-Added a new bitstream filtering API
-The codec format registration API has been deleted. All formats are always registered
-Replace 'int' with 'size_t' in many APIs to ensure safety
-Delete libavresample

'This release of FFmpeg 5.0 is important because we expect this release to start a new release schedule for FFmpeg,' Kempf said. The company plans to release a long-term support version once every two years.

In addition, FFmpeg accepts donations on the following page.

Donations
https://ffmpeg.org/donations.html