The open-source multimedia framework FFmpeg was released as version 9.0 on 4 August 2026. The new major release carries the codename “Lei” – a tribute to the late Chinese audio/video pioneer Lei Xiaohua. Technically, the standout features are native support for animated WebP and greatly expanded GPU acceleration.
Animated WebP without a third-party library
FFmpeg 9.0 ships its own decoder and demuxer for animated WebP files. This lets the framework read such files directly, without relying on external libraries like libwebp – a win for maintainability and compatibility. In practice, animated WebP files can now be converted straight into GIFs or other formats.
More GPU acceleration
- Vulkan: hardware acceleration for the APV codec (Samsung) plus a new
v360_vulkanfilter that offloads 360° and panoramic video to the GPU. - NVIDIA/CUDA: a new
transpose_cudafilter for GPU-bound frame rotation. - AMD AMF: expanded support – including a frame-rate converter, a quality enhancer and extended HDR capabilities.
On top of that, FFmpeg 9.0 supports Apple ProRes RAW and can run AI models GPU-accelerated via the ONNX Runtime. Relevant from a security standpoint: the tls_verify option is now enabled by default. As with any major release, it is worth checking the changelogs before upgrading if you rely on custom scripts.
