v0.3.0

Remote VideoToolbox for FFmpeg: use a Mac or Apple Silicon system over LAN as an IP-based H.264/HEVC encode/decode/transcoding accelerator.

1-minute quickstart

1. On the Mac server, download vtremoted-macos-arm64.tar.gz (Apple Silicon) or vtremoted-macos-x86_64.tar.gz (Intel Mac).
2. On the client, download the FFmpeg build for your platform: ffmpeg-linux-x86_64.tar.gz, ffmpeg-macos-arm64.tar.gz, ffmpeg-macos-x86_64.tar.gz, or ffmpeg-windows-x86_64.tar.gz.
3. Start vtremoted on the Mac:

tar -xzf vtremoted-macos-arm64.tar.gz
./vtremoted/vtremoted --listen 0.0.0.0:5555 --log-level 1

4. Run a remote encode from the client:

mkdir -p ffmpeg-client
tar -xzf ffmpeg-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -C ffmpeg-client
./ffmpeg-client/ffmpeg -i input.mkv \
  -c:v h264_videotoolbox_remote \
  -vt_remote_host <MAC_IP>:5555 \
  -b:v 6000k \
  output.mkv

Which asset do I need?

• vtremoted-macos-arm64.tar.gz: macOS server binary for Apple Silicon Macs.
• vtremoted-macos-x86_64.tar.gz: macOS server binary for Intel Macs.
• ffmpeg-linux-x86_64.tar.gz: FFmpeg client build for Linux.
• ffmpeg-macos-arm64.tar.gz: FFmpeg client build for Apple Silicon Macs.
• ffmpeg-macos-x86_64.tar.gz: FFmpeg client build for Intel Macs.
• ffmpeg-windows-x86_64.tar.gz: FFmpeg client build for Windows.
• SHA256SUMS.txt: checksums for all release tarballs.

What changed in this release?

Fixed

• Fixed missing inet_pton return value check in OBS plugin client, preventing confusing errors on invalid addresses.
• Fixed potential NULL dereference in OBS encoder when video output is not yet attached.
• Improved read_exact in OBS plugin client to distinguish disconnection from errors and retry on transient failures (EAGAIN/EINTR).
• Added warning log when side-data allocation fails during remote decode, preventing silent metadata loss.
• Fixed hardcoded 2-plane assumption in fill_frame_from_view; now copies all planes reported by the remote server.
• Replaced force unwraps on baseAddress! in Swift server decode/encode paths with safe guards, preventing crashes on malformed zero-length payloads.
• Replaced unsynchronized Swift Array with UnsafeMutableBufferPointer for concurrent plane error collection, eliminating potential data race.

CI

• Added swift test step to both macOS arm64 and x86_64 CI jobs, enabling the 38 existing unit tests that were previously not run in CI.
• Added timeout-minutes to Swift (15 min) and FFmpeg (45 min) build jobs to prevent runaway CI usage.
• Added mock-based integration tests (run_mock_roundtrip.sh, run_mock_decode.sh) to the Linux FFmpeg CI build.

Learn more

• README
• Getting started
• Security
• Architecture