News
Development updates, new features, and what's coming next.
Screen Capture Is Now Available on Linux (Beta)
The free screen recorder — until now Mac-only — has a Linux build: a GTK4 interface driving FFmpeg 9 for capture, with your voice and the computer's sound recorded together in one file, same as the Mac version.
One real system difference worth knowing before you download: capture goes through FFmpeg's x11grab, which needs a genuine X11/Xorg session — and most Linux desktops default to Wayland now, this one included. Having XWayland installed doesn't fix it: XWayland runs old X11 apps as windows, it doesn't hand your whole desktop over to x11grab to capture. On a real Ubuntu 26.04 Wayland test machine, the fix that actually worked was installing Xfce (sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop, keep gdm3 as the display manager when asked, reboot), then choosing “Xfce” from the gear icon at login. Full steps on the download page. It's marked Beta for a reason — it's newer and less tested than the Mac app, and I'd rather say that upfront than have you find out the hard way.
GoPro Import Now Detects and Merges Split Chapters Automatically
If you've ever pulled footage off a GoPro and found one continuous recording split into two or three separate files (GH010254.MP4, GH020254.MP4, and so on) that's the camera's own recording limit kicking in mid-take, not you doing anything wrong. Figuring out which clips actually belonged together and stitching them back into one file used to be manual work.
The GoPro Import picker now has a Chapter Detection toggle. Turn it on and it groups clips from the same recording with matching colored borders, so you can see at a glance which files split from the same take. Check one clip in a group and its chapters get selected automatically. On import, FFmpeg Commander merges each group back into a single continuous file — no re-encoding, so it's fast — with a live progress bar, a time estimate, and a Cancel button if you change your mind partway through.
VHS Fix — Restore Old VHS Tapes and Home Video
I added a new tool to FFmpeg Commander called VHS Fix, and it does exactly what the name says. If you've ever captured a shoebox of old VHS tapes or camcorder footage and been let down by how fuzzy, jittery, and washed-out it looks, this is for you. That's not you doing anything wrong. It's just what tape looks like once you see it on a modern screen. VHS Fix cleans it up.
From one dialog it deinterlaces the jittery motion, scrubs away the grainy analog noise, settles the rainbow shimmer along edges, and revives faded colour. It can even use AI to upscale a soft standard-def tape close to HD. You don't have to understand any of that to use it: a Recommendation Scan looks at your footage and picks sensible settings for you, and an A/B before-and-after preview lets you check a short sample before you commit to restoring a whole tape. Like everything else in the toolbox, it runs entirely on your own computer.
Full walkthrough, with a video: Restore old VHS tapes and home video →
Both Mac Apps Are Now Notarized by Apple
FFmpeg Commander and the free Screen Capture app are now signed with an official Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Apple has verified who I am as the developer, scanned the apps, and issued a notarization ticket that confirms there's nothing malicious inside.
That gets rid of the "unidentified developer" warning, and the right-click-to-open trick people used to get past it. You download either app and it opens the normal way the first time, on any Mac.
Nothing else changed. Both are still local-first, with no cloud, no telemetry, and no account. This is just Apple putting its stamp on that. Download the free screen recorder → or get FFmpeg Commander →
Screen Recording Has Been Removed from FFmpeg Commander
I pulled the Screen Recording feature from FFmpeg Commander. It was macOS-only, and keeping a macOS-exclusive feature in a tool that now runs on Windows and Linux never quite made sense. It also didn't really fit what the toolbox is for. FFmpeg Commander is about converting, editing, and processing video files you already have. Capturing your screen is a different job.
The good news is that the screen recorder isn't going away entirely. It's now a standalone free Mac app, and it grew some features the built-in version never had: record your voice and the computer's sound mixed together in one file, hear the audio live while you record, and a one-click installer for the BlackHole audio driver. Download it free here →
Free User Manual, Now Available as a PDF
There is now a complete User Manual for FFmpeg Commander, and it is free to download whether you have already bought the software or you are still deciding. I wrote it to cover the whole toolbox in plain language, from choosing your media and editing clips to downloading video, Whisper transcription, the black-and-white filmic look, and every one of the encoding settings.
It also covers the parts people tend to miss, like the per-clip effects and frei0r plugins in the Holding Bin, the full set of Director Workbench looks, and how the player quietly changes what it offers depending on whether you are watching a plain video or working on a clip. If you have ever wondered what a button actually does before you click it, this is the place to look.
FFmpeg Commander Is Now Available on Linux
FFmpeg Commander is officially out for Linux — same GUI, same toolbox, no command line needed to install or run it. Extract the download, right-click install.sh, choose "Run as a Program," and you're done. The installer handles desktop integration and any missing system packages automatically.
Certified on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (x86_64) — that's the version this has actually been tested on. It should also work on other recent Ubuntu LTS releases and close derivatives (Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Elementary OS), since they share the same underlying libraries, but I haven't independently verified those yet, so no guarantee there.
Full step-by-step instructions plus a video walkthrough of the install: Install FFmpeg Commander on Linux →
Network Codec Convert & Replace — Fix HEVC Files on Your NAS Without Downloading Anything Manually
Got an HEVC (H.265) file on a NAS that an older TV or low-power media server can't play? FFmpeg Commander could already convert codecs on files on your computer — now it can do the same thing for a file sitting on any SMB or NFS share.
Pick a file from anything mounted under /Volumes — a QNAP, Synology, TrueNAS, or any other SMB/NFS share — and FFmpeg Commander copies it down, converts the codec with full hardware acceleration, and copies the result back next to the original as a new file. Nothing is overwritten until you review it and click Replace Original, which keeps a .bak backup until you're ready to delete it.
This isn't tied to Plex specifically — it works with any server where file sharing is turned on, whether that's Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, or just a folder of videos on a share. Read the full guide →
Two New Director Workbench Effects — Photo Insert & Background Music
Two new creative effects just landed in the Director Workbench, both stackable with everything else and rendered in a single pass.
Photo Insert drops 1–4 still images straight into your video at any timestamp. Each photo gets its own animation (Static, Ken Burns in/out, fades, or slide-ins), its own color style (Normal, B&W, Sepia, Warm, or Cool), and an optional caption burned in as a clean lower-third title — then the video picks right back up. Read the Photo Insert guide →
Background Music mixes a music track under your video with automatic ducking, so the music quiets down whenever someone is talking and rises back up in the gaps. And it's not limited to one song: add multiple tracks, each with its own audio file, volume, and draggable timeline range, so an intro theme can hand off to a different cue under the next scene. Overlapping tracks layer together, and the whole mix previews live before you render. Read the Background Music guide →
Both join the Director Workbench's growing set of stackable effects — position each one on the timeline by dragging its region in the preview player, and see exactly what you'll get before you export.
Intel OpenVINO Support — Whisper Transcription Now GPU & NPU Accelerated on Intel
FFmpeg Commander now supports Intel OpenVINO for Whisper AI transcription on Windows. This brings hardware-accelerated transcription to Intel Arc graphics and modern Intel Core Ultra processors — including onboard NPU acceleration where supported.
Until now, GPU-accelerated transcription required an NVIDIA card with CUDA. Intel and AMD users were limited to CPU-only transcription. With OpenVINO, Intel users can now run Whisper at significantly faster speeds using their GPU or NPU — no NVIDIA card needed.
One-click install from the app's Settings — no technical setup, no command line. FFmpeg Commander handles the OpenVINO backend installation automatically.
Compatible hardware: Intel Arc graphics (A-series and newer) and Intel Core Ultra processors with integrated GPU or NPU. Older Intel integrated graphics may fall back to CPU mode.
The OpenVINO install dialog shows real-world speed estimates for your hardware — iGPU, Arc discrete GPU, NPU, or CPU-only.
AMD and Intel Hardware Acceleration Now Live on Windows 11
FFmpeg Commander now supports AMD AMF and Intel Quick Sync hardware encoders on Windows 11. Until now, hardware-accelerated encoding on Windows required an NVIDIA GPU. With this update, AMD Radeon users and Intel integrated graphics users can encode video at full hardware speed — no NVIDIA card required.
AMD AMF (h264_amf / hevc_amf) — available on any AMD Radeon GPU, RX 400 series and newer. Delivers hardware-speed H.264 and H.265 encoding comparable to NVIDIA NVENC.
Intel Quick Sync (h264_qsv / hevc_qsv) — built into Intel integrated graphics on most Intel CPUs since 6th generation (Skylake, 2015). This covers a huge number of laptops and desktops that have never had a dedicated GPU. Real-world testing on an Intel HD 530 (2015) showed 164 fps with Quick Sync vs. 56 fps on CPU alone — a 3x speedup on 10-year-old integrated graphics.
Both encoders appear in the video codec dropdown marked [Beta]. FFmpeg Commander detects available hardware at startup and automatically selects the best encoder for your system. If you select AMD or Intel hardware encoding on a machine that doesn't support it, the app falls back to software encoding automatically with a clear log message — no crashes, no errors.
Note: Whisper AI transcription GPU acceleration supports NVIDIA CUDA and Intel OpenVINO. AMD GPUs are not supported for Whisper acceleration at this time.