AMD Lands AV1 Decode For Radeon RX 6000 Series In Mesa

[boxie]

What would really call for some VulkanVideo or something where NVidia, Intel, AMD, Qualcom and few others can make more standard specification that could be truly multiplatform. I would even say that Vulkan's aproach for "optional" extensions would really work well for video

*insert XKCD comic about standards here*

In my laymans eyes, it appears that VA-API is the more successful of the video decode projects. I think it would be better if Intel "donated"/handed over control of VA-API project to khronos

[piotrj3]

*insert XKCD comic about standards here*

In my laymans eyes, it appears that VA-API is the more successful of the video decode projects. I think it would be better if Intel "donated"/handed over control of VA-API project to khronos

oh i know that xkcd comic very well, and sure va-api seems the most succesful. Problem is that va-api etc. are really linux only (and a bit android but android as far as i know doesn't use practically vaapi). Thing is the moment something like VulkanVideo because truly platform agnostic, the issues of something like "Firefox/Chrome/my favourite video player" doesn't implement XX api dissapear because you can use just one universal api on every system everywhere (here it is important the stuff is supported by Windows exactly same way as on linux so you have no issue that developer doesn't want to develop something for 1% of users).

[boxie]

oh i know that xkcd comic very well, and sure va-api seems the most succesful. Problem is that va-api etc. are really linux only (and a bit android but android as far as i know doesn't use practically vaapi). Thing is the moment something like VulkanVideo because truly platform agnostic, the issues of something like "Firefox/Chrome/my favourite video player" doesn't implement XX api dissapear because you can use just one universal api on every system everywhere (here it is important the stuff is supported by Windows exactly same way as on linux so you have no issue that developer doesn't want to develop something for 1% of users).

The problem is Windows already has a working solution (and 95% of the desktop market). They also have DX12 which they are pushing.

I doubt they would change course.

As for the other major use cases for Linux video being Android - not all the ARM SoCs will have a vulkan driver / have a vulkan driver with good quality.

I get where you are coming from, unfortunately the nuance here kicks the idea in the butt

[agd5f]

That's exactly what I asked. VA-API is just an abstraction. Why not work with the VA-API upstream to add AV1 support to VA-API itself?

It was added to VA-API eventually, just not in time for when we needed it. VA-API is an Intel managed API.

[piotrj3]

The problem is Windows already has a working solution (and 95% of the desktop market). They also have DX12 which they are pushing.

I doubt they would change course.

As for the other major use cases for Linux video being Android - not all the ARM SoCs will have a vulkan driver / have a vulkan driver with good quality.

I get where you are coming from, unfortunately the nuance here kicks the idea in the butt

Android do seem to go forward in vulkan direction, but here is a thing VulkanVideo i just said for sake of it being standard managed in same way Vulkan is, not strictly dependant on Vulkan. Google generally themselves heavy recommends implementing Vulkan on Android since version 9.

Also fact DX12 exists on windows, doesn't stop Vulkan from being succesful on Windows.

[pal666]

Any kind of support for AV1 is welcome, but it's a bit ironic that the least demanding part (decode) gets hardware acceleration first.

because it's more used. everyone watches youtube and how youtube does encode is not interesting

[pal666]

Sadly, GStreamer is irrelevant today.

i'm pretty sure it's used by default video player on gnome

[pal666]

Well, this is not 100% true, since AV1 support in WebRTC will appear if not this year then next year for sure

so maybe next year hardware will have av1 encode

[brad0]

That is absolutly normal because AV1 is really complex codec that is NOT meant to be encoded by normal users. AV1 is meant to be more for cases of sort you encode once, 1 milion users decode it afterwards.

Sure, if you redefine normal users to something it doesn't mean and only within specific parameters. That's not how video codecs work. This is the same kind of misguided argument I hear from fools that try to defend crappy cable and it's limited upstream capacity and how only 1% of 1% upload anything so no one needs anything more. That's not how things work. No clue.

[brad0]

so maybe next year hardware will have av1 encode

Intel's Rocket Lake has some new hardware encoders including AV1. Yes, other major GPU vendors will have fixed function encoders as well next year.