FFmpeg 8.1 "Hoare" released with Vulkan compute codecs and D3D12 support

FFmpeg 8.1, codenamed "Hoare", has been officially released, bringing significant updates to hardware acceleration and codec support. Key improvements include Vulkan compute-based encoding and decoding for ProRes and DPX, and new D3D12 filters for H.264/AV1 encoding and deinterlacing. The release also adds Rockchip H.264/HEVC hardware encoding and experimental xHE-AAC Mps212 decoding. Additionally, the project is making progress on a major swscale rewrite and has optimized Vulkan-based components to remove runtime GLSL compilation dependencies.

Technical advancements in FFmpeg 8.1

• Vulkan Compute Integration: ProRes encoding/decoding and DPX decoding now utilize Vulkan compute, with optimizations that remove runtime GLSL compilation to speed up initialization.
• D3D12 Expansion: New support for D3D12 H.264/AV1 encoding and specific filters including scale_d3d12, mestimate_d3d12, and deinterlace_d3d12.
• Hardware Acceleration: Added Rockchip H.264/HEVC hardware encoding support and experimental xHE-AAC Mps212 decoding.
• Audio and Metadata: Support for IAMF Ambisonic Audio Elements muxing/demuxing and LCEVC metadata parsing/forwarding.

Why it matters

This release strengthens FFmpeg's position in cross-platform hardware acceleration, particularly through Vulkan and D3D12, benefiting developers building media tools for Linux and Windows. The move toward removing runtime GLSL compilation improves performance and reliability for high-performance video processing pipelines.