AMD Releases Open-Source UVD Video Support

[Serafean]

Finally did some testing on my card. It's CAYMAN series ( HD6950 )

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950]

so it should be the same as found in APUs of the HD7XXX series, if my memory serves right. firmware needed : SUMO_rlc.

• MPEG1/2, tested with http://inventaaustralia.zftp.com.nyu...3MBPS30sec.mpg : WORKS; mplayer : [ffmpeg12vdpau] vfm : ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-1/2 (VDPAU))
  
• H264, tested with Sintel & Tears of Steel : WORKS ;mplayer output : [ffh264vdpau] vfm : ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264 (VDPAU))
• MPEG4 (assumed, decoded with ffodivxvdpau), tested with personnal video (from camera & transcoded) : WORKS ; mplayer : [ffodivxvdpau] vfm : ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4,DIVX-4/5 (VDPAU))
• VC1, tested with http://samples.mplayerhq.hu.nyud.net..._51_15Mbps.wmv : FAILS with artefacts and green window, enabling -vc ffwmv3vdpau completely hangs the card.

This was tested with mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffmpeg12vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau,

xbmc hangs when vdpau is enabled.

Serafean

[Samu23el]

I simply wouldn't have believed it.

[ryszardzonk]

Finally did some testing on my card. It's CAYMAN series ( HD6950 )

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950]

so it should be the same as found in APUs of the HD7XXX series, if my memory serves right. firmware needed : SUMO_rlc.

• MPEG1/2, tested with http://inventaaustralia.zftp.com.nyu...3MBPS30sec.mpg : WORKS; mplayer : [ffmpeg12vdpau] vfm : ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-1/2 (VDPAU))
  
• H264, tested with Sintel & Tears of Steel : WORKS ;mplayer output : [ffh264vdpau] vfm : ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264 (VDPAU))
• MPEG4 (assumed, decoded with ffodivxvdpau), tested with personnal video (from camera & transcoded) : WORKS ; mplayer : [ffodivxvdpau] vfm : ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4,DIVX-4/5 (VDPAU))
• VC1, tested with http://samples.mplayerhq.hu.nyud.net..._51_15Mbps.wmv : FAILS with artefacts and green window, enabling -vc ffwmv3vdpau completely hangs the card.

This was tested with mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffmpeg12vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau,

xbmc hangs when vdpau is enabled.

Serafean

I have made it work for E-350 with
Kernel 3.9-rc6 + drm uvd patches (3.8 + patches didn't work for me)
libdrm Git 08.04.2013
xorg-server 1.13.3
Mesa Git 08.04.2013 + uvd patch

Overall I am very please with results as there is a way for open source driver to finally playback 1080p H264 content with just very limited CPU use It is not without rough edges on one can see on the bug 63090.

For XBMC & Vdapu https://github.com/FernetMenta/xbmc has to be used. It works, but not all that smooth. Probably some more fixes are needed to their vdpau implementation

PS vdpauinfo reveled for me as there is no deinterlancing capabilities in the driver I hope that will change in the future as well

[Krejzi]

Perfectly reasonable question. The downside with that approach is that we would need to write and validate a completely different set of microcode for the open source drivers, and that's a big honkin' pile of work. There are also limits to the size of the microcode - basically limited to the size of the on-chip microcode store for that block.

I saw someone saying that part of UVD is implemented in microcode so I thought maybe secret pm bits could be implemented too. I wasn't aware of any limitations though. Too bad.

Oh and by the way, do you know (or are you allowed to tell us) if there are any plans for EGL in the proprietary driver?

[Krejzi]

And does anyone happen to know if UVD will work with hybrid graphics? airlied said it might in theory work with DRI_PRIME. Can anyone confirm this who/if someone got it set up?

[jrch2k8]

christian there is a way to debug UVD output? i mean i have some free time and tons of different kind of videos to test, so if there is a way to debug it i can send you dumps and maybe some cut video files for you to reproduce it.

again great work

[cube]

Great thanks AMD!

When I saw this news I was SURE it's an april fools story (a really good candidate IMO). I though that it's quite obvious we will never get open source UVD (especially on older chips) because hardware design doesn't allow to release it without compromising drm.

Really nice surprise.

Is there any chance that new Ubuntu would support this ? Or maybe it's time to switch to a rolling-release distro (Arch?)

[Khudsa]

This is a great news! Thank AMD and all people involved to make/release it!

[Serafean]

Just landed in master

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/commit/?id=5b2855bfe79bfc3995969f2bf775d89b1bc1808a

Is there any chance that new Ubuntu would support this ? Or maybe it's time to switch to a rolling-release distro (Arch?)

Wait another year for official support A quick google search popped up a PPA that could be interesting to you : https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/graphics-drivers/ I'd say it's for the brave...
(Keep in mind that this also needs kernel support + updated microcode firmware. AFAIK the kernel part will land in 3.10, but patches are available )

Serafean

[Banias]

Will it be possible to implement hardware decoding of 10 bit h264 videos on UVD 2 or newer or is the hardware itself not capable of doing this? If it is not, could that be fixed with a firmware update?