AMD Radeon Navi 2 / VCN 3.0 Supports AV1 Video Decoding

[shmerl]

In contrast, AV1 and H.265/HEVC are open standards controlled by industry consortiums.

AV1 is, HEVC is documented, but not an open standard.

[chithanh]

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.

I think it is rather because something like AOMedia exists at all now. VP9 was a standard that was entirely controlled by Google, and there was no real spec, just the reference decoder. This had some interesting consequences, like hardware implementations having to match the bugs in the decoder. Certainly that is why chip designers were wary of VP9.

In contrast, AV1 and H.265/HEVC are open standards controlled by industry consortiums.

[wswartzendruber]

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

Christopher Montgomery at Xiph recently said in a talk that less than half of the patents for HEVC are currently a part of licensing authorities.

Nobody wants to touch HEVC with a ten meter stick and even Apple has come on board to AV1.

AV1 has a future and HEVC does not.

[skeevy420]

Not sure how hardware acceleration for media decoding is relevant for gaming. Android media boxes had hardware 4k/HEVC decode years ago for example.

It means that I haven't bothered buying any media device that actually has 4K/HEVC. Since the primary purpose of my devices are to play games and watch shows on Linux (which is usually gimped by streaming providers to crap resolutions) I have no need for 4K anything. But if 4K is the entry barrier, I won't be passing it anytime soon.

Not to mention that I have fscking bandwidth quotas on my wired, cable internet which makes 4K undesirable.

[nranger]

you can't patent things already in use.

Good point. But as soon as someone gets sued, they have to pay lawyers to go find that prior art.

[Danny3]

Is it even legal for you to visit phoronix from Window$?

Who are you to ask such questions, are you the owner of Phoronix ?
I can visit it from the terminal if I want to.
Anyway, I normally visit it from Linux, but even if I do it from Windows or Android I don't think it's anybody's business.
Have a nice day!

[starshipeleven]

I don't have anything 4K. I think 4K is next to useless outside of text and photo editing. I play games and I don't want to spend the GDP of California on a GPU and electricity costs to do so. Also, in the choice of framerate or resolution I pick framerate. I'd rather have 2K or 1080p 60 smooth or 45-140 FreeSync versus the 30 smooth or 20-60 FreeSync I might get at 4K.

Not sure how hardware acceleration for media decoding is relevant for gaming. Android media boxes had hardware 4k/HEVC decode years ago for example.

[skeevy420]

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

I don't have anything 4K. I think 4K is next to useless outside of text and photo editing. I play games and I don't want to spend the GDP of California on a GPU and electricity costs to do so. Also, in the choice of framerate or resolution I pick framerate. I'd rather have 2K or 1080p 60 smooth or 45-140 FreeSync versus the 30 smooth or 20-60 FreeSync I might get at 4K.

[MadeUpName]

I am in need to upgrade my HTPC but I have been waiting for some thing that is affordable but supports AV1 decode of 4K@24/10bit. The Xbox S might be just the ticket if it is possible to reinstall it with Linux.

It is really unfortunate that there is no AV1 encode from ether vendor this round. It seems I have to upgrade my graphics card on my work PC every single time they release a new series of graphics cards. I was hoping I could get in on this round and skip the next for a change but it looks like I will have to upgrade this year and again next year.

[microcode]

What a hopeless world. I hope you are very very very wrong. It's like saying at least COVID-19 might end us if we're lucky.

Dude, it's not hopeless. Nobody's actually getting sued for using AV1 and the world keeps spinning. Get therapy, you are depressed.