There May Finally Be Better ATI Linux Video Playback

[phoronix]

Phoronix: There May Finally Be Better ATI Linux Video Playback

I've now been in Las Vegas for less than 48 hours in preparations for the Consumer Electronics Show this week. Interestingly though something has come up twice already when talking with various AMD stakeholders in recent days: they are evidently working on improvements to their Linux video acceleration playback. Right now Catalyst Linux users are basically left using this closed-source library written by a third-party (Splitted Desktop Systems) by applications that utilize the VA-API interface that is then translated to AMD's internal XvBA (X-Video Bitstream Acceleraton) interface used by the Catalyst driver, but this may soon change...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODk4MQ

[meklu]

Wait a minute. So Qaridarium could be correct(ish) this time around?

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27892

[mirv]

I thought it was known that AMD were working on something - but never had a release date. Basically XvBA was for their embedded systems and they were working on bringing it to the desktop, from what I understood.

[Armin]

The day they release a proper video acceleration under linux (within either one of their drivers, catalyst or open-source) I will buy a HTPC with an AMD CPU+GPU or one of these APU thingies they introduced recently and of course a main-board with AMD chip-set!

Right now I'm strongly considering an AMD CPU and a Nvidia GPU, just because they manage to provide this awesome VDAPU thing and the GFX-card is only 25 EUR or so.

In general I am a AMD fan and only by AMD stuff when it comes to work related PC's (no need for video acceleration, but good OpenGL support ). I even wait with my new laptop till Lenovo brings up the new Thinkpad T5xx / W5xx with AMD GPU.

-Armin

[Armin]

and here we go, I was basically talking about such a mainborad+apu combination (unfortunately the article is in German and I'm too lazy to dig out an English one, but you get the point):

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Mini-ITX-Mainboard-mit-AMD-E-350-und-USB-3-0-1164142.html

But yeah, first video acceleration under linux than buying mainboard.

[RealNC]

Could someone explain to me what the *hell* this article is about? "There May Finally Be Better ATI Linux Video Playback". Yeah, where? I read the article twice. Where's the news about a better ATI Linux Video Playback?

[devius]

I read the article twice. Where's the news about a better ATI Linux Video Playback?

Should have read a third time apparently. Here it is right at the beggining:

Interestingly though something has come up twice already when talking with various AMD stakeholders in recent days: they are evidently working on improvements to their Linux video acceleration playback.

Well... that's it. The rest is the usual XVBA history lesson and "It would be really great if they would implement NVIDIA's VDPAU within their driver". Nothing new there.

[monraaf]

they are evidently working on improvements to their Linux video acceleration playback.

It may be evident to you, but for me it's not evident at all. If you claim to be a journalist then isn't it your job to inform your readers? But instead of elaborating, as usual most of this 'news' post actually consists of describing the current situation, which btw is evident to me as a reader and does not need such in depth explanation.

It's hard to gather what changes may be coming to improve ATI/AMD Linux video playback via the Catalyst Linux driver besides having the driver expose VA-API directly,

So are you saying that they are going to expose UVD directly through VA-API now and there's no more need for the splitted-desktop VA-API -> XvBA wrapper? Or is this just another case of wishful thinking on your part just like the steam hoax.

[madjr]

steam on linux FTW!!

[Adarion]

Could someone explain to me what the *hell* this article is about? "There May Finally Be Better ATI Linux Video Playback". Yeah, where? I read the article twice. Where's the news about a better ATI Linux Video Playback?

Hehe, I also couldn't really find anything of substance besides the first sentence. But AMD is likely very aware of the problem, but mainly it is an IP problem (as the last sentence told).

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Mini-ITX-Mainboard-mit-AMD-E-350-und-USB-3-0-1164142.html

The article is about Gigabyte offering one of the first APU thingy boards with a Bobcat/Zacate on 2 x 1,6 Ghz (AMD E-350), Radeon HD 6310 (could still be derived from R800) with a TDP of 18W. 1x DVI, 1xHDMI, up to 8 GB of DDR3, 4 SATA ports up to 6G SATA, Renesas USB 3.0 2 slots and a single PCIex16 4 lanes.
No price or release date were given by Gigabyte yet. Asus is planning to do it passively cooled.

Asus, MSI, Jetway are to follow with boards.