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Third-party plugins get a new install location but can keep loading from legacy paths until OBS 34. Support is removed for Ubuntu 24.04, FFmpeg 6.x and 7.x, and Qt 6.4 through 6.9.
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The release includes additions from animated WebP handling to new Vulkan and VideoToolbox acceleration paths. Each is a small capability until it becomes the missing piece in someone else's product.
HN readers celebrated the project as unusually durable open-source infrastructure: technical work that is visible mostly when it is absent.
The new encoder even ships a deliberate workaround: its author found FFmpeg's own AAC decoder mishandles stereo PNS, so the encoder compensates to keep playback correct.
It is constant-bitrate only and tuned for 48kHz, with 44.1kHz and 96kHz working but discouraged.
The catch skeptics keep raising: on the same benchmark, Opus beats every AAC encoder even at 64 kbps.
The praise came wrapped in qualifiers — "almost certainly a better overall programmer than I am" — and a commenter called out the hedging directly.
Then a counter-voice landed: Bellard hasn't touched FFmpeg in over 20 years, none of his original code survives, yet he alone still controls who may use the FFmpeg name.