FFmpeg 9.0, codenamed "Lei," was released on August 4, 2026. It arrived about four months after the previous minor update, version 8.1 "Hoare." Full release notes are available at the FFmpeg project repository on GitHub (release notes).

FFmpeg is software that processes video and audio. It converts files between formats, compresses and decompresses video, and handles the behind-the-scenes work that streaming services, video editors, and many other tools rely on. Most people never see it directly, but it sits underneath a large share of the video technology in use today.

The 9.0 release continues FFmpeg's push into Vulkan-based video processing. Vulkan is a tool that lets software communicate directly with the graphics card (GPU), the same chip that renders video games and 3D graphics. By routing video encoding and decoding through the GPU instead of the main processor (CPU), FFmpeg can handle video work faster and more efficiently. Version 9.0 adds Vulkan-based decoding for APV (Advanced Professional Video) and Apple ProRes RAW, a high-quality video format used in professional film and television production.

This builds on earlier work. FFmpeg 8.0 "Huffman," released August 22, 2025, introduced Vulkan-based handling for FFv1 and ProRes RAW, along with Vulkan-accelerated VP9 decoding and AV1 encoding. FFmpeg 8.1 "Hoare," announced March 16, 2026, added Vulkan-based ProRes encoding and decoding and DPX decoding.

Beyond Vulkan, the 9.0 update includes two other additions. A filter called vf_vpp_amf, which works with AMD graphics hardware, gained improved support for HDR (High Dynamic Range), the technology behind the brighter highlights and wider color range in modern video. LCEVC (Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding) support was added to the MP4 file format handler, allowing FFmpeg to manage a newer video standard designed to improve quality at low data rates.

The release also benefits from new hardware. On June 24, 2026, a company called Ampere Computing donated a powerful server to the FFmpeg project. The server has 192 processor cores (most home computers have between 4 and 16), 512 GB of memory, 24 fast storage drives, and high-speed networking. It arrived two days before the 9.0 release was finalized, and will be used to automatically build and test FFmpeg on Arm-based processors, the type used in many servers and mobile devices.

The earlier 8.x releases built up a large set of new format and feature support that 9.0 now builds on. FFmpeg 8.0 added decoders for APV, ProRes RAW, RealVideo 6.0, Sanyo LD-ADPCM, and G.728, along with format support for MCC, G.728, Whip, and APV, and filters including colordetect, pad_cuda, scale_d3d11, and Whisper. FFmpeg 8.1 added experimental MPEG-H audio decoding, DirectX 12-based H.264 and AV1 encoding, Rockchip hardware encoding, and the hxvs demuxer.

Looking at the timing, FFmpeg's major releases have sped up. The gap between 8.1 and 9.0 was about four months, while the previous gap between 8.0 and 8.1 was about seven months. Whether this faster pace will continue is not yet clear from just two releases, but the project has clear momentum. The Vulkan acceleration effort ties it all together: every release since 8.0 has moved more video processing onto the GPU, working toward a system where the graphics card handles encoding and decoding across a growing range of video formats.

The AmpereOne donation deserves a separate note. FFmpeg's importance to the industry, from streaming platforms to embedded devices, has long exceeded its infrastructure budget. A 192-core server with large storage and networking capacity gives the project the computing power it needs to run the automated tests that check every code change, and to verify that video codecs work correctly, tasks that ordinary hardware struggles with. That this came from Ampere, a company whose processors are designed for exactly the kinds of server workloads FFmpeg's users care about, is a practical match of interests.

The broader context is that FFmpeg remains the connective tissue of the video processing world. The video formats arriving in each release, APV, LCEVC, MPEG-H, come from ongoing industry standardization efforts that FFmpeg picks up quickly. The Vulkan path matters because it works with any graphics card vendor, unlike the more specialized hardware interfaces (such as AMD's AMF, Microsoft's DirectX 12, or the Linux-focused VAAPI) that the 8.x releases also expanded. Having both approaches available gives the companies and developers who use FFmpeg flexibility in how they hand off video work to specialized hardware.

The full changelog for version 9.0 is hosted at the project's GitHub repository (Changelog).