Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FFmpeg Finally Releases Long-Awaited Version 0.5

Posted by timothy on from the unsung-software-heroes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After many years of release-free development, FFmpeg, the most widely used audio and video codec library, has finally returned to a regular release schedule with the long-awaited version 0.5. While the list of changes is far too long to list here, some high-profile improvements include the reverse-engineering of all Real video formats, WMV9/VC-1 support, AAC decoding, and of course vast performance improvements across the board. To commemorate the 'lively' discussions predating the release, 0.5 is codenamed 'half-way to world domination A.K.A. the belligerent blue bike shed.' The new version can be downloaded from the official website." As another reader points out, FFmpeg is what makes some open source multimedia apps (like MPlayer, Xine, VLC and Kdenlive) so versatile.

3 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. easier blu-ray on linux? by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I noticed on the release notes that ffmpeg now supports TrueHD as well as the VC-1 for video, these are both commonly used on blu-ray discs. Maybe we'll get lucky and at least now we'll be able to play our blu-ray disc tracks on linux after we remove all the DRM, & HDCP nonsense. We could sort of do it before but it's a royal pain in the ass: just last night I had to go through about four different media players to blue-ray tracks in trueHD audio and some other weird video format before I found one that could actually play my disc without spewing out error messages every frame. Even then it seemed like the dolby 5.1 sound was messed up -- the voices were coming from behind us and the music from the front.

    --
    Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
  2. That was always the most confusing part too by coryking · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There never was a real build for ffmpeg. Now that they've got a stable release, I wonder when they will start pushing out official builds for various platforms (say, Win32/64)?

    That said, could they actually push out binaries? One of the strange things with ffmpeg is that pretty much everywhere you go, it is compiled different. One system's ffmpeg will have a bunch of codecs installed and another will not. You can never really count on having something like H.264. Hell, I've seen one installation that didn't even have libmp3lame on it! Reminds me of PHP in many ways--so many damn compiler flags that you are pretty much guaranteed every system will be different.

    Is this a legal thing, or a "we dont have a good build process yet" thing?

  3. Doesn't support Dirac by Burz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    WTF? I am supposed to use Theora if I want an unencumbered codec??

    At least VLC supports it directly.

    Incidentally, VLC is not so hot on OS X these days. Instead of using FFmpeg for everything it can, it defers to Quicktime and its plugins for anything it can. Which means that most of the time you will not get an alternative method of decoding with the latest VLC versions; I can play many more files with earlier versions.