Why so many encoder/sdecoder updates in the market?

[drwho]

If there is something that bugs me is
Why so many applications in the market doing almost the same thing and yet with very frequent updates?
I am more interested to know what is updated as changelogs are not found on shareware sites.
Thanks

[jagabo]

Yeah, wouldn't it be great if there was only one and it hardly ever got updated?!

[guns1inger]

Many of the shareware/freeware encoders are based around freeware libraries and modules like ffmpeg. When these get updated, there is usually a flurry of updates from all these piggy-back programs.

[celtic_druid]

ffmpeg's svn would get updated way more than apps based on it.
http://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk/?view=log
5 updates in the last 4 hours.

[drwho]

Oh I see!
I knew that there would have to be a reson behind all this updates almost at the same time

[guns1inger]

5 updates in the last 4 hours.

To keep up with every minor change would be a never ending and ultimately unwinnable task, obviously. But eventually enough changes make it worthwhile. Ffmpeg is just an example, and came to mind because a number of apps like mediabuilder recently were updated to incorporate a more recent build of ffmpeg.