AMD Radeon Navi 2 / VCN 3.0 Supports AV1 Video Decoding

[rene]

some phorum expert recently told me here video codecs are all mostly the same and this is "just a little mit of microcode", ... lol ;-) https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...e3#post1204575

[cjcox]

Is it? On computers, it seems that VP9 is eating HEVC's lunch, it's basically just as efficient, and it is arguably a lot less precarious on the licensing front, even if you don't care what you have to pay.

One could argue that "encoding" probably means reasonable decoding is also possible. Making just the topic of encoding possibly more important than decoding. I just bring this up because the conversation started blenderizing the two.

IMHO, we need the industry as a whole to move away from patent encumbered codecs. We need to stop having to rely on the "promise not to sue".

[dlq84]

Not sure what consumer devices you're waiting for, everything that plays "4k"/UHD has HEVC support. skeevy420

[brad0]

More importantly, it has HEVC encode. Sorry, but HEVC is far more important that AV1.

The complete opposite of reality.

[zxy_thf]

I am wondering about AV1 encode in hardware, but it seems that neither Nvidia nor AMD bring this to the table in this generation which is sad as the 18 months since the ratification are gone now and we still don't get it...

The video quality of hardware encoder is always in question, since the era of H264.
For live streaming I think H264 is still "good enough" and won't be replaced any time soon.

[shmerl]

More importantly, it has HEVC encode. Sorry, but HEVC is far more important that AV1.

Not really. HEVC is a dead end. But AV1 encoder, that would be really useful.

[dc_coder_84]

Wow, I didn't expect this so soon from AMD. Great news! VP9 took them much longer on discrete graphic cards compared to Nvidia.

[shmerl]

Wow, I didn't expect this so soon from AMD. Great news! VP9 took them much longer on discrete graphic cards compared to Nvidia.

I wonder of it's because AOM were pushing it more.

[AmericanLocomotive]

I am wondering about AV1 encode in hardware, but it seems that neither Nvidia nor AMD bring this to the table in this generation which is sad as the 18 months since the ratification are gone now and we still don't get it...

Hardware development starts about ~3 years before the release. So any chip released today, started development 2017. Then it's usually about a year from when the very first prototype chip rolls off the line to an actual production-ready product. Once that initial prototype chip is "taped out", the design is basically not changing. Then before you get that first tape-out product, you have months and months of simulation and design verification. Any change to the chip or architecture means more months of testing and verification. With the AV1 spec being locked in only 18 months ago, it's honestly pretty impressive we already have decoders in products as complicated as dedicated GPUs. It basically means they were building hardware with an incomplete spec that could change. Very risky move.

[tildearrow]

More importantly, it has HEVC encode. Sorry, but HEVC is far more important that AV1.

I know, you're just an Apple fanboy and that's why everything that's proprietary is golden for you.

Sorry, but you will reach a dead end soon.