FFmpeg 2.8 Brings Intel QSV Encoding/Decoding, HEVC Hardware Acceleration

FFmpeg 2.8 is now available as the latest major update to this important open-source multimedia project. This is also the first major release since the longtime FFmpeg leader resigned this summer.

FFmpeg 2.8 features Intel QSV accelerated MPEG-2 and HEVC video encoding/decoding and VC-1 decoding. H.265/HEVC video hardware acceleration has also been added using the VA-API and VDPAU video decode APIs on Linux.

There's also a libkvazaar HEVC encoder added, other new decoders/encoders, Go2Meeting decode support, a number of new video filters, AAC fixed-point decoding, support for DNx100, the default encoders for WebM have been switched to VP9 and Opus, and the experimental flag has been removed for the JPEG 2000 encoder.

At the time of writing this article no official FFmpeg 2.8.0 release announcement has been pushed out yet but you can download the new release here and dig through the change-log for the other minor details of this release. Besides this being the first release since Michael Niedermayer resigned, it's also the first big update since it was announced FFmpeg is returning to Debian.