Intel VA-API Driver Gets H.264 Encoding Improvements For Broadwell

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel VA-API Driver Gets H.264 Encoding Improvements For Broadwell

Version 1.3.2 of Intel's VA-API driver for open-source video encode/decode using modern Intel HD Graphics GPUs has been released...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTcyMTA

[amehaye]

Any news about H.265?
With 4K screens becoming the norm it seems to be a bit more relevant than H.264.

[arekm]

Broadwell isn't that exciting (yet).

We would be more interested in improvements for hardware that is actually available like Haswell :-) Are there any or is Haswell already abandoned among new development/new features?

[TheLexMachine]

Any news about H.265?
With 4K screens becoming the norm it seems to be a bit more relevant than H.264.

H.265 decoding isn't coming until Skylake with hardware encoding several years away and all 4K content is currently encoded with H.264, so it's far less relevant at this point and will be so for at least another several years while VP9 and H.265 mature.

[Wilfred]

Broadwell isn't that exciting (yet).

We would be more interested in improvements for hardware that is actually available like Haswell :-) Are there any or is Haswell already abandoned among new development/new features?

Yeah, I have that feeling too. Is the 3.0 release of the sna driver already out?

[deve]

Does someone know about tools for x264 encoding on linux which use va-api? AFAIK ffmpeg supports only decoding...

[deanjo]

and all 4K content is currently encoded with H.264

Not true, Netflix's 4k streams utilize H.265.

http://www.dailytech.com/Netflix+to+Stream+House+of+Cards+in+4K+via+HEVC+H265+Compression/article33962.htm

[Kivada]

Any news about H.265?
With 4K screens becoming the norm it seems to be a bit more relevant than H.264.

I'm just wondering if theres going to be a new mPCIe DSP for VP9/h.265 like the Broadcom CrystalHD was for h.264 decoding upgrades to low end gear. I've got some Athlon and E series systems that could use it to stay completely relevant for their tasks for years to come.

[hajj_3]

haswell and broadwell will be able to partially hardware decode h265 using shaders but that is only for some parts of the codec and shaders isn't true hardware decoding as that requires dedicated circuitry. There's no chance of getting h265 encoding in broadwell. I doubt it will even be available in skylake. There's no news about VP9 decoding from intel either, would be nice if we could hardware decode that in skylake as youtube is now using that and it uses about 22% cpu for me in 1080p on a core i5 430m 1st gen laptop apu on windows. 1080p h264 videos use less than 4% cpu on windows

[TheLexMachine]

Not true, Netflix's 4k streams utilize H.265.

http://www.dailytech.com/Netflix+to+...ticle33962.htm

We're not talking about Netflix. All downloadable 4K content currently on the web is H.264 and the current GPUs all support 4K decoding of H.264 streams. H.265 encoders are not going to be widely adopted for some time because they aren't very efficient and encoding via software requires massive computing power.