0.23.0

This version was originally tagged and released on the date below. These notes were added on GitHub much later so the creation date won't match.

Sunday, February 10, 2019

• Add a --avbr ratecontrol option to transcode-video (via #248) which:
  • Implements an average variable bitrate (AVBR) ratecontrol system focused on maintaining quality at the risk of final bitrates being as much as 10-15% higher or lower than the target.
  • May emit a few VBV underflow warnings at the beginning of a transcode, but nothing like the sustained deluge possible with my special, or default, ratecontrol system.
  • Works only with the x264 and x264_10bit encoders. Sorry, but the settings necessary to implement AVBR are not available with the x265 family of encoders.
• Add my new AVBR ratecontrol system to the "Explanation" section of the "README" document.
• Add an undocumented --raw ratecontrol testing option to transcode-video which implements, by default, an unconstrained ABR system, easily modified with --handbrake-option and/or --encoder-option.
• Add a --mixdown option to transcode-video which sets the mixdown format for all AAC audio tracks, either Dolby Pro Logic II (the default) or stereo. Thanks to @samhutchins for the idea and the patch! Via #245.
• Fix failure in detect-crop on Linux for certain inputs by forcing the text output from ffmpeg into UTF-8 binary format to ensure the correct parsing of that data during crop detection. Via #247.
• List all hardware-based video encoders within the related answer in the "FAQ" section of the "README" document. Thanks to @vr8hub for the idea! Via #251.
• Update all copyright notices to the year 2019.