HEVC/H.265 Video Decode Is Present In VDPAU For AMDGPU

[Gusar]

Microsoft changed the RTM version of windows 10 so that it will only play h265 video if your computer can fully hardware decode it

Which means it *doesn't* have a decoder, it relies on a third party one. It just contains enough glue to access this third party decoder.

Going by the above, every Linux distro has a decoder just by providing libvdpau and libva. But libvdpau and libva *don't* contain decoders, they're just glue to access one if you have the appropriate hardware. It's ffmpeg that contains a decoder and there are distros which don't ship ffmpeg by default because of legal reasons (Fedora being the prime example).

which is a sensible decision as it means that companies like netflix can deliver h265 only to people they know with certainty can play it back smoothly and without killing battery life for their customers.

That's the PR spin on it, yeah.

But just like some Linux distros don't ship ffmpeg for legal reasons, Microsoft removed their decoder for legal reasons. Though they're big enough that they should be able to afford the licensing fee, there's also the part where Microsoft dropped Media Center from Win10. The Media Center was mainly used for DVD playback according to MS, so by dropping it they're also saving themselves mpeg2 licensing fees, which are a lot higher than h264 fees.

So either you believe the PR spin, or you go with the more likely scenario where MS clearly wants to cut back on licensing fees. Which makes sense, considering they're basically giving away the OS for free.

[Azrael5]

No browser supports it right now, and it's possible none ever will. The licensing fee is just too high ($25 million per year, compared to $5 million for h264; and that's not including the new HEVC Advance patent pool which has no annual cap, meaning you could easily reach $100 million and more).

There's always the workaround of delegating decoding to a system media framework (like what Firefox does for h264), but even that requires some glue code in the browser, and I'm not aware of any browser having it. Maybe Microsoft Edge, but it's doubtful, considering Win10 doesn't come with a h265 decoder - it seems not even Microsoft wants to pay the licensing fee.

As for Youtube, I don't see it getting h265, they'll focus on using VP9 of 4k videos, while all other videos are h264/vp8/vp9.


It isn't about getting one's act together, hardware is needed. No AMD hardware currently has VP9 decoding, not even Fiji and Carrizo. PC hardware in general is a bit poor in this department. Intel had VP9 decoding only on Cherryview/Braswell, but not on Skylake. Nvidia has it on the GTX960, but it's exposed only via nvcuvid, not via vdpau.

Then there's the software side, no browser currently has proper hardware decoding support, for any codec. There's a patch for Chromium to enable VAAPI, but last time I tried it it didn't work.

Edit; Hmm, I'm actually not sure about Cherryview/Braswell, there's no vp9 code in libva-intel-driver. I found this though: https://github.com/01org/intel-hybrid-driver <- hybrid vp9 decoding for Intel hardware. Interesting. Very interesting. I wasn't aware someone is bothering with hybrid decoders on Linux.

thanks for these useful informations, what about ffVP9!? I didn't know amd video cards lack of Vp9 support decoding. How to know which vgas support it!? Are there test to evaluate a vga!? On the HTML5 TEST my vga is claimed to support both VP9 and vp8 on the browser I use or these infromations concern wiht borwaser only?

https://html5test.com/

[DanL]

Though they're big enough that they should be able to afford the licensing fee, there's also the part where Microsoft dropped Media Center from Win10. The Media Center was mainly used for DVD playback according to MS, so by dropping it they're also saving themselves mpeg2 licensing fees, which are a lot higher than h264 fees.

MS still offers a DVD player with Win 10, but you have to pay $15 for it. MS also includes a DVD player on the Xbox One.

[Gusar]

thanks for these useful informations, what about VP9ff!? I didn't know amd video cards lack of Vp9 support decoding. How to know which vgas support it!? Are there test to evaluate a vga!? On the HTML5 TEST my vga is claimed to support both VP9 and vp8 on the browser I use or these infromations concern wiht borwaser only?

https://html5test.com/

Like I said, the only one with a VP9 decoder is Nvidia GTX960. But browsers won't be able to use it, unless they implement nvcuvid support.
Intel has a hybrid decoder (no dedicated hardware, but some things done with shaders while the rest is done in software, this isn't efficient at all). AMD has nothing currently.

HTML5 test doesn't claim you have a hardware decoder, it shows VP9 being available because the browser has a _software_ decoder.

MS still offers a DVD player with Win 10, but you have to pay $15 for it.

Which just confirms what I said - MS is cutting back on licensing fees. They're not giving you a mpeg2 license anymore, they're making you pay for it.

MS also includes a DVD player on the Xbox One.

There's no annual cap for mpeg2, so paying for just Xbox is a lot cheaper than paying for both Xbox and Windows. There are about 105 million Xboxes out there (wikipedia lists 25m for Xbox, 77m for Xbox360 and 3m for Xbox1). Compare that to the number of Windows installations. And keep in mind the mpeg2 license is $2 per unit.

h264 has an annual cap of $5 million, so you pay that regardless of how many units you ship.

[Azrael5]

the lack of hardware support on VP9 vgas depends on hardware or drivers?

[dungeon]

the lack of hardware support on VP9 vgas depends on hardware or drivers?

Hardware support means that there is hardware decoder block in your vga, which supports that codec.

To use that decoder's feature, you also need software support: driver + app.

[johnc]

Like I said, the only one with a VP9 decoder is Nvidia GTX960.

And the Tegra X1 I believe.

[Azrael5]

Hardware support means that there is hardware decoder block in your vga, which supports that codec.

To use that decoder's feature, you also need software support: driver + app.

Thanks, so I've to think that if my vga supports H.264 codec it whoud be better to use a browser which compute videos by h.264 rather than vp9. However I red that it is going to implement parallel compute on vp9... I don't understand why programs don't use paralle sse instructions to compute datas.

I'm interested also in ffvp9 codifications.

[Gusar]

And the Tegra X1 I believe.

I believe so too, but I was limiting myself to PC hardware. Then there's also the Galaxy S6 phone and some 4k TVs by Samsung and LG. In the coming months the number of TVs and phones will certainly rise.

However I red that it is going to implement parallel compute on vp9... I don't understand why programs don't use paralle sse instructions to compute datas.

They do. At least up to SSSE3, maybe more. But even those are a lot slower than a dedicated hardware decoder. Resolutions up to 1080p aren't a problem for modern CPUs (desktop CPUs at least, phone CPUs are much weaker), it's 4k that's a problem.

I'm interested also in ffvp9 codifications.

ffvp9 is a lot faster than libvpx. Unfortunately, browsers use libvpx. Don't really know why, considering they use ffmpeg for h264.

This graph is several months old now, but somehow I doubt libvpx has gotten that much better: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rb.../vp9-32bit.png

[DanL]

Which just confirms what I said - MS is cutting back on licensing fees. They're not giving you a mpeg2 license anymore, they're making you pay for it.

You always paid for it. The cost was built into the Windows price. For free upgrades of Windows 10, having DVD playback as a "freemium" feature is not a terrible model. If Win 10 is the same price as Win7, it seems like a ripoff if you have to pay the $15.