When writing a high performance video codec avoiding defensive copies of objects is something you want always, not just often.
C makes it easy to be fast but hard to be safe. Rust makes it easy to be safe but hard to be fast.
Also note that video codecs tend to wrap C or Rust around handcrafted ASM. Performance is king.
Though more safety can in some cases bring a bit more performance. For instance, with Rust you can often avoid "defensive copies" of objects.