First, straight to the fun, download FastFlix here to try it out! (Windows only builds right now). FastFlix started out to be a small clip and GIF maker for myself, but quickly realized I could expand it for larger usage. And it just so happens that AV1 is an emerging codec that doesn’t have a lot of GUI options yet, it’s like it was meant to be!
Before going out and re-encoing everything with AV1, which will be the next standard codec as everyone is on board with it, there are a few catches, so make sure to read on
What makes FastFlix unique?
AV1 Support for multiple libraries
FastFlix is designed as a general command wrapper, so it can support multiple different programs. Right now it supports both the libaom-av1 and SVT-AV1 libraries.
Totally MIT open source code, reuse to your hearts content!
Unlike most converts that are limited to the GPL license thanks to the libx265/libx264 libraries and others, FastFlix has been designed in a way to keep it legal to steal use any of it’s core code in your own projects without forcing them to be open source.
Extensible
FastFlix was designed to have a plug in architecture. That way anyone can develop or use their own plugins on top of what is already available to bring additional functionally.
What’s the catch?
New program using an experimental codec
There will be bugs. Both on the GUI side and on the codec side. Report anything weird you see and we’ll try to figure out it’s a GUI problem or needs to be passed along to the codec team.
SVT-AV1 makes it difficult to convert videos
Right now SVT-AV1 requires the source input to be broken up to smaller chucks (if it is longer than the segment size) as raw YUV video, which can take up gigabytes of space. They are automatically cleaned up as it goes along, but it is still silly that SVT-AV1 cannot take a regular video file as input yet.
I’m just one guy, and this is a side project
I don’t make any money (nor take donations. $10K+ bribes, please email me 😉) and FastFlix is not something I will spend all my free time on. So I am always looking for help and feedback!
Wrapping up
Please give a github star if you like FastFlix and be sure to send your love to SVT-AV1 as well if you find their program useful!
Again, you can download FastFlix on the Github release page.
For those of you interested more in how FastFlix works or was created I hope to do a follow up post that goes into using PySide2 and the full workflow of using Appveyor to deliver releases.