The PipeWire project has announced the release of PipeWire 1.6, a significant update to the open-source server designed for managing audio and video streams as well as hardware on Linux-based systems. This release introduces an array of new features and improvements.
Notable highlights of PipeWire 1.6 include the ability to set audio channel layouts directly using simplified options like audio.layout = "5.1", rather than the more complicated format previously required. It also incorporates an LDAC decoder for Bluetooth audio, SpanDSP for reducing Bluetooth packet loss, and support for multitrack layouts on ROC.
Additionally, the update introduces Capability Params, which allow for negotiation of capabilities on a link prior to buffer and format negotiation. There are also enhancements to metadata features that signal when the sync_timeline metadata accommodates the RELEASE operation, alongside the addition of more HDR color types.
PipeWire 1.6 brings support for locking loops with priority inversion to enhance state updates, enhanced functionality for compressed format handling, and incorporates options for including extra user data in node commands. The compile-time maximum channel count has also been increased, now defaulting to 128.
The updated resampler now supports configurable window functions (including Blackman and Kaiser), and new plugins for FFmpeg and ONNX have been added to the filter graph, facilitating the running of audio AVFilterGraph and various models, including the silero VAD.
The release also introduces multiple enhancements for Bluetooth, AVB updates regarding the Milan protocol, and improvements related to JACK clients. It refines default channel handling and implements socket activation independent of libsystemd. As with many updates, PipeWire 1.6 also includes various bug fixes, detailed further in the release notes.
Users interested in this release can download PipeWire 1.6 as a source tarball from the project’s GitLab page or soon find it available in their distribution’s stable repositories.