A year and a half in the making, GStreamer 1.18 is here to replace the 1.16 series and it’s packed with lots of goodies. Highlights include a new high-level API that apps can use to transcode media files between different formats, better HDR (High Dynamic Range) video information representation and signaling, as well as instant playback rate change support. GStreamer 1.18 also introduces AFD (Active Format Description) and Bar Data support, a new sink to produce DASH content, ONVIF trick modes support in the GStreamer RTSP server and client, a new DVB Subtitle encoder element, a new RTMP client source and sink element implementation, and a new SVT-HEVC-based H.265 video encoder.