Video Commander 2026.11.1 is a maintenance release for the September 2026 cycle. It updates the app-managed FFmpeg, puts Sources within reach of the title bar, and clears a set of issues across Inspect, Analyze, and the Player. Here are the highlights:
- FFmpeg 9.0.1 - AV1 encoding, MP3 output, and
zscale,tonemapanddrawtexton macOS for the first time. - Sources in the title bar - a cloud icon beside the settings cogwheel, and a cog in Remote Files and the Remote File Browser.
- Selectable text - text can be selected and copied throughout the app, including Inspect's copyable values.
- Frame comparison dragging - panning holds the pointer, and the wipe divider keeps the offset it was grabbed at.
Version 2026.11.1 is available now from the download page.
Settings
The app-managed FFmpeg
The app-managed FFmpeg is now 9.0.1, up from 8.1 on macOS and 8.1.2 on Windows. Settings → FFmpeg reports the update and installs it over the old build.
The macOS build gains SVT-AV1, dav1d, LAME, zimg, and FreeType/HarfBuzz. That adds AV1 encoding, MP3 output, zscale and tonemap, and drawtext to the macOS build for the first time. Convert's MP3 jobs on macOS previously failed with Unknown encoder 'libmp3lame', because the build carried no LAME encoder.
Two pieces of version reporting are corrected alongside it. The panel's verification was keyed on the install path, which an in-place update does not change, so the checkmark kept describing the previous build until Settings was reopened. The status bar read the FFmpeg version only when availability itself changed, so picking a different binary in Settings → Local Tools left the old build's number on screen.
Remote storage
Reaching Sources
The title bar has a Sources button: a cloud icon beside the settings cogwheel. Until now the dialog was reachable only from the sidebar menu and the command palette.
Remote Files and the Remote File Browser can both open it as well, from a cog beside Refresh, and the browser's "no sources configured" message is a link to it. The browser's connection list follows changes while it is open.
The workspace
Selectable text
Text throughout the app can be selected and copied. <body> carried select-none, which blocked mouse selection everywhere.
Selection is on except in the chrome where a drag would sweep a selection: the title bar, sidebar, tab strip, status bar, and the Structure and project trees.
Inspect's copyable values are covered too. Box type, offset and size, key IDs, IVs, and PSSH details rendered their value inside the copy button, and WebKit does not allow selecting text inside a form control. The value now sits beside the button, and the icon copies.
Layout
The workspace content area reaches down to the status bar. The scroll region below the tab bar ended 64px short of it.
Analyze
Frame comparison
Dragging in the VMAF frame comparison holds on to the pointer. Pressing on a frame started the webview's own image drag, which took the pointer away mid-pan, so the images no longer drag.
Panning applies each movement to the current position, so a frame arriving mid-drag does not snap the image back. The wipe divider keeps the offset it was grabbed at, and the zoom buttons zoom the middle of the pane rather than its top-left corner.
Inspect
MP3 in an MP4
MP3 audio in an MP4 uses the same mp4a sample entry as AAC. The codec now carries the esds object type, so Inspect reports mp4a (MP3) beside mp4a (AAC-LC) instead of a bare mp4a. This applies in the app and in vc inspect.
Samples tab errors
A container that fails to parse reports the reason from the parser. The Samples tab previously stayed on "Loading sample data..." and sent the error to crash reporting instead of to the screen.
Player
A stream that fails to load is covered with the reason rather than a black frame. DRM failures name the cause: the webview offers only its own platform key system, so Widevine and PlayReady streams cannot play at all.
Engineering
- Frontend source maps are uploaded to Sentry as part of publishing, so stack traces from released builds resolve to real source.
- Security advisories in bundled dependencies are resolved.
@xmldom/xmldom, which video.js uses to parse DASH manifests, moves to 0.8.15 for an XML fragment injection fix. The rest were build-time only.
Fixes
- The project tree's file menu no longer shows the workspace through it. The menu rendered inside the sidebar's fixed layer, which WebKit composites separately from the scrolling workspace. It is portalled to the document like every other menu, with an opaque background.
Download
Get 2026.11.1 from the download page, or use the in-app updater. The full release history is on the changelog.