Multimedia News Archives

Sound Open Firmware as the open-source, vendor-independent audio DSP firmware stack and driver framework is out today with a new feature update.

OpenAPV as the open-source reference implementation of the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec today saw its v1.1.1 release, succeeding v0.3.0 as the prior release.

For those using the Linux-friendly DaVinci Resolve video editing and color correction/grading and visual effects software, DaVinci Resolve 21.1 is out today as a major update to this cross-platform solution.

Following the recent Shotcut stable release with a stock asset library and other improvements, Shotcut 26.9 Beta is out today with yet more improvements for this open-source video editing application for Linux, macOS, and Windows systems.

The longtime Audacity open-source audio editor had been using wxWidgets for years but with today's Audacity 4.0 release they have transitioned to using the Qt6 toolkit.

OpenShot 4.0 was tagged this afternoon on GitHub as the newest major feature release to this open-source non-linear video editing application.

Following last week's main set of sound subsystem updates for Linux 7.3 that brought a lot of new audio hardware support, a second round of sound updates were merged this weekend ahead of today's Linux 7.3-rc1 release.

Upstreamed to the FFmpeg multimedia driver code this weekend is support for Frame Rate Up-Conversion "FRUC" making use of the NVIDIA Vulkan Optical Flow extension.

Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE submitted all of the sound feature updates last week for the Linux 7.3 kernel. Besides the continued AI/LLM-generated patch churn, the sound code for Linux 7.3 sees a lot of new hardware support.

The main set of media subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.3 merge window. Notable this round is the Intel Computer Vision Sensing "CVS" driver merged the previous cycle now supporting next-gen Nova Lake platforms.

The PreSonus Quantum 2626 is a high-end, Thunderbolt 3 based audio interface. PreSonus just maintains Windows and macOS drivers for this high-end audio interface while now an open-source Linux driver has been posted after being independently developed via reverse engineering.

The FFmpeg multimedia library can now enjoy faster H.265/HEVC video encoding with the Vulkan-powered encode path. With the optimizations merged today, the H.265 encode performance should be roughly at parity to the H.264 encode speed.

The HP OmniBook X Flip 14-kc0xxx is an AMD Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" powered laptop. While most AMD Strix Point laptops work fine on modern Linux distributions, with this particular HP OmniBook X there is no working audio with current mainline Linux kernel builds. With Claude Opus 5 acting as a debugging assistant and coding agent, patches are now pending to correct the audio support for this HP OmniBook X Flip 14 laptop to function on Linux.

FFmpeg 9.0 is now available as the latest feature release for this widely used, open-source multimedia library.

Shotcut 26.7 is out today as the newest feature release to this open-source, cross-platform video editing solution.

Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE previously warned of many sound driver fixes due to AI/LLMs and a "new normal" of patch activity as a result. While we are approaching the end of the Linux 7.2 merge window with the stable release coming up in August, the sound patches continue trending higher and this week were "far larger than wished" ahead of Linux 7.2-rc6 due out on Sunday.

While the VideoLAN developers are busy these days working on dav2d for AV2 video decoding, they haven't let up work on dav1d and recently released dav1d 1.5.4 for continuing to enhance this leading open-source, CPU-based AV1 decoder.

Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE sent out this week's batch of sound fixes that he describes as "A collection of fixes that have been accumulated recently. The amount is still "new normal", but all small fixes. Mostly hardware-specific quirks, but including a few core fixes, too." The "new normal" has been a common phrase recently to reflect the increased tempo of patches as well as security/bug disclosures all due to the increased pace of AI/LLM activity.

If you are looking for a reason to celebrate today, the last of the MPEG-4 Part 2 patents expired today.

The latest hand-tuned code in the FFmpeg multimedia library for allowing better performance on today's modern Intel/AMD AVX-512-capable processors is showing 1.372x faster performance for RGB24 to RGBA pixel format conversions.

Back in May the FFmpeg project introduced Vulkan-accelerated decoding for the APV video format. The Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec was being handled using Vulkan shaders in a similar way to how FFmpeg implemented Vulkan acceleration for Apple ProRes. Now there is Vulkan-accelerated APV encoding too.

OpenAPV, the Academy Software Foundation project that provides a reference implementation of the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec is out with a new feature update.

Shotcut 26.6 is out today as the newest major feature release for this popular cross-platform, open-source video editing solution.

An AMD engineer has contributed to the upstream FFmpeg library an ONNX Runtime back-end for its DNN filter. The FFmpeg Deep Neural Network (DNN) filters allow for running AI models natively inside the video processing pipeline for upscaling, object detection, background segmentation, and more. This ONNX Runntime back-end support is notable in that it expands the GPU and NPU capabilities with FFmpeg.

Shotcut 26.6 is now available in beta form as this latest feature update for this popular, open-source and cross platform video editor.

Zrythm is a wonderful open-source digital audio workstation (DAW) application. Zrythm 1.0 released back in 2024 for this software catering from beginners to audio professionals. It's been a GTK-based application for years but the developers have been porting it to Qt6/QML. Released this weekend is the first Zrythm 2.0 alpha release that moves from GTK to Qt/QML.

It's not only the Linux networking subsystem where many fixes have been appearing -- including several notable security fixes for local privilege escalation issues -- leading to "craziness" from AI / LLMs. The Linux sound subsystem has also been seeing an uptick in activity with many "assisted-by" patches coming about in recent weeks.

FFmpeg already supports CPU-based decoding for Samsung's APV as the Advanced Professional Video Codec. FFmpeg also has APV encode support too while now an interesting addition was merged this week: Vulkan-based acceleration for APV.

Last year the widely-used, open-source FFmpeg multimedia library introduced Apple ProRes video acceleration using shaders with the Vulkan API. Now FFmpeg has taken it a step further and can support Apple ProRes RAW Vulkan-based video decoding.

It's been an interesting 2026 in Linux development with beginning to phase out i486 CPU support, dropping ISDN and amateur "ham" radio support, and other code cleaning in the name of a diminishing user base -- or perhaps even no users left -- for those running such vintage hardware with a modern, up-to-date kernel. Yet ISA sound card drivers have seen an uptick in activity.

While the Alliance For Open Media had been aiming for the AV2 release by the end of 2025, as of right now the AV2 specification remains in a draft status. VideoLAN developers though for months have already been working on dav2d as an open-source AV2 decoder and that code was published this weekend.

Shotcut 26.4.30 shipped today as the latest and greatest version of this open-source, cross-platform video editor.

Libcamera 0.7.1 released on Tuesday as the newest feature release for this open-source library for camera image signal processors (ISPs) that has grown of importance for the likes of Raspberry Pi and Chrome OS and modern desktop Linux distributions with modern laptop hardware like recent Intel Core (Ultra) laptops.

Following last week's Linux 7.1 sound subsystem feature pull that added bus keeper support in working toward better Apple Silicon support along with a variety of other new audio hardware support, a secondary set of sound updates were merged as we approach the end of the Linux 7.1 merge window.

The sound subsystem changes were merged this week for Linux 7.1 that include some new hardware support and other useful additions.

Beyond the capabilities of just the Vulkan Video API, the FFmpeg multimedia library has made interesting Vulkan-accelerated adaptations using compute shaders. With Vulkan compute they've implemented Apple ProRes video acceleration, FFV1 decode, and other features. The newest Vulkan feature now in place for FFmpeg is 360 degree video conversion.

The Linux 7.0-rc6 kernel due for release tomorrow has a lot of audio fixes/quirks to correct a wide variety of different hardware issues, mostly different problematic laptops for their speakers and/or microphone behavior under Linux.

FFmpeg 8.1 is out today as the newest stable release of this widely-used, open-source multimedia library.

OBS Studio 32.1 is now available for this popular cross-platform desktop screen recording app that is also popular with game live-streaming and other uses.

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

Building off January's GStreamer 1.28 release with many new features, GStreamer 1.28.1 was released today as a point release bringing various fixes and minor additions to this open-source multimedia framework.

FFmpeg developer Lynne is most known recently for all the Vulkan Video work to this open-source multimedia library while merged today to FFmpeg is another great contribution outside the scope of that: xHE-AAC MPS212 audio decoding support.

While the Alliance For Open Media "AOMedia" is most known for developing the AV1 open video codec, the associated AV1 Image File Format (AVIF), and the next-generation AV2, they are now working on the Open Audio Codec (OAC).

MythTV 36 is now available for this long-time open-source digital video recorder "DVR" software that has been around now for more than two decades as the leading choice for those wishing to watch and/or record live TV under Linux especially as an HTPC.

Ardour 9.0 is out today as the latest major feature release to this leading open-source digital audio workstation (DAW) software for musicians, recording engineers, and other audio editing needs.

Shotcut 26.1 is now available as the latest feature update to this open-source and cross-platform video editing solution. Shotcut 26.1 is finally defaulting to GPU hardware accelerated video decoding by default for all platforms sans NVIDIA GPUs on Linux.

For those interested in the Dolby Digital Plus "Enhanced AC-3" audio compression format for open-source software, the last of the patents for this widely-used format by streaming services and more appears to have expired.

Libcamera 0.7 was published today for this modern software library for image signal processors (ISPs) and embedded cameras under Linux. The standout change with libcamera 0.7 is initial plumbing for GPU acceleration in the software ISP "SoftISP" for delivering better performance than just CPU-based.

GStreamer 1.28 is out today as the newest feature release for this widely-used, open-source multimedia framework.

The Focusrite Forte 2-in, 4-out USB audio interface as a portable audio recording solution will be supported by the mainline Linux 7.0 kernel. The patches are queued in the Linux kernel's sound subsystem development tree. While a convenient little device, the Focusrite Forte is no longer manufactured but can still be found used online.