XvMC support

[mirak63]

I was playing MPEG2 fine even on my old Pentium 2 400MHz! That's not a "modern" CPU by any stretch of the imagination. People are interested about MPEG4 formats and think MC is going to help them.

are you sure it was on linux and not windows ?
because even right now, I can't play a DVD or a DVB stream on a powerpc G4 400mhz or a celeron coppermine 700mhz.

[bridgman]

no docs (for months to come), no interest, seems to be the basic problem here.

Docs required for XvMC on 5xx and earlier have been out for almost a year; docs and sample code for 6xx/7xx are out now.

I don't think it's so much lack of interest as much as higher priorities in the short term; our devs are working on 3D and (hopefully soon) power management; the main community devs are working on kernel modesetting, memory management and Gallium3D.

[popper]

it seems that XvMC and UVD is getting left far behind as devs work daily on all the other non UVD ASIC hardware/APIs, realisticly, is it simply to late for them now?, do any ATI coders care about UVD API anymore?, and if so what timelines can we expect some working usable code ?, a simple ? frame accurate FFMPEG patch seems to be all thats required to get at least some interest from 3rd partys, but perhaps im missing something fundimental and need it spelling out , no docs (for months to come), no interest, seems to be the basic problem here.

http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2009-January/060522.html

" Gwenol? Beauchesne gbeauchesne at ......com
Thu Jan 29 17:01:18 CET 2009

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

The upcoming patches add VA API support to FFmpeg. They rely on libVA
changes that are not upstream yet, though the maintainer agreed to
integrate them for a future release. Those changes are actually
extensions (new fields) to suit the needs of XvBA and VDPAU backends.
You can get the current libVA patchset here: .....

VA API currently covers the following codecs:
- MPEG-2
- MPEG-4
- H.263 (MPEG-4 part-2 short video header format)
- H.264
- VC-1

Regards,
Gwenole.
"

[bridgman]

So far I think the implementation only covers MC (the XvMC API covers MC-only or IDCT+MC).

For GPUs with dedicated IDCT hardware it may turn out to be easier to integrate the IDCT and MC processing with a native XvMC implementation. Most of the Radeon family parts have some additional logic to coordinate IDCT (on dedicated HW) and MC (on shaders) processing, but I don't think that would work if the MC part were being done through Gallium.

[TechMage89]

Actually, that's an implementation of XvMC. The API is still important.

However, that ought to work on ATI cards once there is a working Gallium driver. The downside however, is that it won't be as low-power or fast as using the hardware decoders.

[rvdboom]

According to this news : http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NzAwNA, there seems to be work to accelerate video directly in Gallium3D.
Wouldn't that make kind of obsolete any XVMC or equivalent development? Wouldn't it be a more interesting way to help developping these features and make sure they work well with ATI?

[Dieter]

>>> XvMC is a bit hit and miss on the Via chipsets as to
>>> whether the drivers support it or not. It is being
>>> actively worked on for the openChrome drivers...
>>
>> Is there a chart somewhere showing which features
>> openChrome supports on which Via chips? Perhaps similar to
>>
>> http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
>
> Not that I am aware off...
>
> Though that might be something I could manage to arrange if
> the openchrome devs don't kill me for all my questions...

Where should I watch for this? On the x.org wiki?

BTW, ATI should create charts for the Rage and Fire* families.

[clavko]

Choice.

Yup, choice. And I choose to stay here, I've been hooked. And since
I'm already here I decided to dump the current state of my feelings
registers, before I get too comfortable to be considered a typical
Microsoft product user ("Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson?").

I hope there's no hard feelings - I know some of you guys and girls
are really doing your best. Think of it as a form of "Come on, you're
the best - now act like it, damnit!". In the meantime I'll be working
on my degree and find a way or two to help. Just... throw us something
here and there to keep us excited

[MU_Engineer]

It seems as though the graphics hardware manufacturers should spend more time lobbying US legislators, both to repeal the DMCA and preferably to ban DRM outright. It's a boat anchor on the tech industry, it hobbles the pace of technical innovation, and everyone knows it.

Seriously... looking at the resources involved in driver development (for all platforms) to deal with DRM in one fashion or another, the lobbying efforts might be time and money better spent... if DRM is taken out of the picture, then anyone could use your fancy dedicated hardware on any system without any lawyers having a hemorrhoid over the whole thing. Which, frankly, would raise the intrinsic value and usefulness of your hardware product.

I am not a lawyer (oh GOD no I am not a lawyer!), but if my interpretation of 17 USC section 117 (the "fair use" section of the U.S. copyright laws) is anywhere near correct, you could argue that DRM is already illegal as it prevents users from backing up media or programs, moving the software to a new machine, or copying for educational and research purposes, all of which are rights granted to the users of the copyrighted works.

[Porter]

The ideal solution is to have access to the dedicated hardware we all put in our chips to support BluRay playback. Unfortunately that hardware is also wrapped up in bad scary DRM stuff so making it available on Linux is a slow and painful process.

It seems as though the graphics hardware manufacturers should spend more time lobbying US legislators, both to repeal the DMCA and preferably to ban DRM outright. It's a boat anchor on the tech industry, it hobbles the pace of technical innovation, and everyone knows it.

Seriously... looking at the resources involved in driver development (for all platforms) to deal with DRM in one fashion or another, the lobbying efforts might be time and money better spent... if DRM is taken out of the picture, then anyone could use your fancy dedicated hardware on any system without any lawyers having a hemorrhoid over the whole thing. Which, frankly, would raise the intrinsic value and usefulness of your hardware product.