The GStreamer team has released version 1.28, a major update to its cross-platform open-source multimedia framework.
The release introduces a new AMD HIP plugin, enabling portable GPU acceleration across AMD and NVIDIA hardware, alongside major Vulkan video upgrades that add AV1 and VP9 decoding, H.264 encoding, and 10-bit H.265 support.
Wayland integration also improves, with HDR10 metadata handling, better color management, and zero-copy buffer sharing via udmabuf, significantly boosting playback performance.
On the AI and media analysis front, GStreamer 1.28 brings a redesigned analytics pipeline with automatic tensor negotiation, the new tensordecodebin, and expanded Rust-based elements for object detection, tracking, and batch processing.
Speech capabilities are also extended with Deepgram speech-to-text, ElevenLabs voice cloning, audio source separation, and improved translation and synthesis tooling.
Regarding streaming, the new version enhances RTMP support with H.265 and multitrack FLV, adds renegotiation and WHEP signalling to WebRTC, and provides important robustness and metadata improvements across container formats such as MP4, MPEG-TS, Matroska, and MXF. Plus, a new VMAF element allows direct perceptual video quality assessment inside pipelines.
For developers, the release adds new core APIs, reduced-spam logging via GstLogContext, improved Python bindings, and a revamped DOT graph viewer. Build tooling also advances with better Cerbero support, including Python wheels, Windows ARM64 installers, and smaller Rust plugin binaries.
For more information, see the announcement. Binaries for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows are expected to be available soon.
