#AVpres Newsletter 2026-10-27

The end of AV Preservation by reto.ch
Training
FFmpeg
Software used by archives

1. The end of AV Preservation by reto.ch

Thank you for the journey we’ve shared over the past 23 years! As mentioned in our last newsletter, we are accepting the very last digitisation projects and look forward to completing them with our customary care before the end of the year.

Joshua has just left us. Michal is wrapping up the final projects. Reto is handling the liquidation of our limited liability company and, post-retirement, he will continue to work part-time as an independent consultant and trainer in audiovisual preservation. Michal and Reto will continue to maintain and further develop the software they have created over the years, and new software will be added as well. In the next Newsletter, we will likely introduce midic, an audio codec that makes it possible to play MIDI files, wrapped in a Matroska container, using a media player.

2. Training

2.1. Analogue and Digital Moving Image Preservation

Reto will continue to teach audiovisual conservation and restauration as a lecturer at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Since 2002, he has taught an entire generation of students in Bern, and many of his former students now hold positions of responsibility in numerous institutions around the world.

2.2. Advanced FFmpeg Course

Following the upcoming closure of the company, the planned advanced FFmpeg course has been rescheduled for next year. We look forward to providing you with the new dates and setup as soon as they are finalised. Stay tuned for updates!

3. FFmpeg

The release of FFmpeg version 9.1 is currently scheduled for sometime before the end of the year and could take place in November.

4. Software used by archives

Updates since the last newsletter are highlighted in bold.

CLI = command-line interface

GUI = graphical user interface

web = web interface

Aaru Data Preservation Suite (CLI): “All-in-one solution for digital media preservation and archival.”
Version 5.4.2 LTS has has been released on 2026-02-14:
https://github.com/aaru-dps/Aaru
The developer, Natalia Portillo, has released a Beta 2 of a new version 6.0.0 on 2026-10-09.
AEO-Light (GUI): Extraction of optical sound tracks form image digitisations with sufficient overscanning.
Version 2.4 has has been released on 2025-07-23:
https://github.com/usc-imi/aeo-light
Audacity (GUI): Recording and editing sounds.
Version 4.0.1 has been released on 2026-09-30:
https://www.audacityteam.org/
Bash (CLI): Command language interpreter that executes commands read from the standard input, a string or a script file.
Version 5.3.20 has been released on 2026-09-14:
https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/
This is the shell we use daily.
DCP-o-matic (GUI): “Get any content cinema-ready.”
Version 2.18.51 has been released on 2026-10-16:
https://dcpomatic.com/
FFmpeg (CLI): The FFmpeg package consists of the three commands ffmpeg (a media transcoder), ffprobe (a media metadata extractor) and ffplay (a media player), as well as seven librairies including libavformat (a container collection), libavcodec (a codec collection) and libavfilter (a filter collection).
Version 9.0.2 has been released on 2026-09-18:
https://ffmpeg.org/
We use our own FFmpeg distribution.
fq (CLI): “Tool, language and decoders for working with binary data.”
Version 0.18.0 has been released on 2026-08-25:
https://github.com/wader/fq
HandBrake (GUI): A video transcoder.
Version 1.11.2 has been released on 2026-06-07:
https://handbrake.fr/
MediaConch (GUI, CLI and web): “Implementation checker, policy checker, reporter, and fixer that targets preservation-level audiovisual files.”
Version 25.04 has been released on 2025-05-05:
https://mediaarea.net/MediaConch
https://mediaarea.net/MediaConchOnline/
MediaInfo (GUI, CLI and web): The most popular metadata extractor.
Version 26.10 has been released on 2026-10-06:
https://mediaarea.net/MediaInfo
MKVToolNix (GUI): Create, alter and inspect Matroska files.
Version 103.0 has been released on 2026-10-18:
https://mkvtoolnix.download/
mpv (CLI and GUI): “A free, open source, and cross-platform media player.”
Version 0.41.0 has been released on 2025-12-21:
https://mpv.io
This is our preferred media player, which we use with our own FFmpeg distribution.
Nano (CLI): A small and friendly text editor. This is not a word processing software.
Version 9.3 has been released on 2026-10-21:
https://www.nano-editor.org/
This is our preferred text editor.
OpenEXR: The reference implementation of the OpenEXR file format (and video codec).
Version 3.5.2 has been released on 2026-10-03:
https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr
QCTools (GUI): Analyse and understand digitised video files through use of audiovisual analytics and filtering.
Version 1.4.1 has been released possibly on 2025-05-19:
https://mediaarea.net/QCTools
https://github.com/bavc/qctools
RAWcooked (CLI): “Encode and decode audio-visual RAW data with Matroska, FFV1 and FLAC.”
A bridge between uncompressed still images and lossless compressed video stream formats.
Version 25.12 has been released on 2025-12-30:
https://mediaarea.net/RAWcooked
Disclaimer: We have supported this project since the development of the original idea, and Reto co-owns the copyright.
Shutter Encoder (GUI): A media transcoder.
Version 20.4 has been released on 2026-09-28:
https://github.com/paulpacifico/shutter-encoder
The Cable Bible: A valuable resource by Ethan Gates.
Version 2025-11-20 is online:
https://github.com/amiaopensource/cable-bible
VLC (GUI): A very popular media player.
Version 3.0.24 has been released on 2026-09-22:
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
vrecord (CLI/GUI): “Open-source software for capturing a video signal and turning it into a digital file.”
Version 2026-10-05 was released:
https://github.com/amiaopensource/vrecord
yt-dlp (CLI): A feature-rich command-line media downloader.
Version 2026.10.21 was released:
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

Best regards from Michal and Reto

2026-10-30