AMD Aims For AMF Decode In FFmpeg, Questioned Over Vulkan Video Commitment

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Aims For AMF Decode In FFmpeg, Questioned Over Vulkan Video Commitment

AMD last week sent out a set of patches to enhance the open-source FFmpeg multimedia library with integration around the AMD Advanced Media Framework (AMF). The AMF SDK allows for "optimal" access to AMD GPUs for multimedia processing but this patch series questioned the need in an era of Vulkan Video APIs beginning to see adoption...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-AMF-FFmpeg-Better-2024

[Gusar]

I don't see Vulkan Video getting traction. There's just some sort of opposition lingering somewhere. I'd rather see this AMF stuff merged than wait for miracle adoption of Vulkan Video.

[RBilettess]

Typical AMD...
I asked them to synchronize their VCN firmware releases between linux-firmware and AMF, but they told me they can't/won't.
There seem to be at least two teams. One working on VA-API and the other on AMF.
They don't talk to each other, won't cooperate...

[lu_tze]

I don't see Vulkan Video getting traction. There's just some sort of opposition lingering somewhere. I'd rather see this AMF stuff merged than wait for miracle adoption of Vulkan Video.

Which is still better adopted than AMF. In linux, nobody uses AMF, since it is a part of the proprietary driver. So not available for debian or fedora at all, and how many RHEL or ubuntu users use the proprietary driver? Not many, anyway.

[edxposed]

Vulkan Video is dead.

[Artim]

Vulkan Video is dead.

You're funny...

[Quackdoc]

will vulkan video support exposing arbitrary parameters? I feel like this would be necessary for vulkan video to actually compete with AMF/Nvenc.

Which is still better adopted than AMF. In linux, nobody uses AMF, since it is a part of the proprietary driver. So not available for debian or fedora at all, and how many RHEL or ubuntu users use the proprietary driver? Not many, anyway.

sadly thats just not true. if you want high quality gpu acceleration (surveilance systems) AMF is what you go for, a lot of us were really happy when AMD announecd that amdvlk would be supported by amf (and possibly radv) when vulkan video lands.

[edxposed]

Which is still better adopted than AMF. In linux, nobody uses AMF, since it is a part of the proprietary driver. So not available for debian or fedora at all, and how many RHEL or ubuntu users use the proprietary driver? Not many, anyway.

Individual Linux users are worth nothing. Every enterprise customer is using AMF, that's good enough for AMD.

[cb88]

Typical AMD...
I asked them to synchronize their VCN firmware releases between linux-firmware and AMF, but they told me they can't/won't.
There seem to be at least two teams. One working on VA-API and the other on AMF.
They don't talk to each other, won't cooperate...

It's more like they have no control over when they are released because of legal..... its not like there are two separate driver teams at this point, after Raja left that got mostly quashed.

Probably what they have now is two leapfrogging teams... and maybe some extra enterprise application support people. At least at the firmware level anyway....

[RBilettess]

Individual Linux users are worth nothing. Every enterprise customer is using AMF, that's good enough for AMD.

And for what would an enterprise customer use AMF?
AMD encoding quality is pretty bad compared to Nvidia or software encoding.

My understanding is that AMF is primarily used by video game streamers. VA-API encoding quality is pretty bad and AMF gives at least OKish quality.