dav1d 0.5.1 Boosts AV1 Video Decode For Older CPUs by 40~50%

[starshipeleven]

Tell that to nearly every ARM Linux user out there with a modern kernel who isn't using a Broadcom or Nvidia chip...

Yeah, there are dozens, dozens of them, I tell you.

[starshipeleven]

Well, anyone who keeps a smartphone more than 3 years might disagree with you.

hardware decoding does not stop working after 3 years

[starshipeleven]

Note how we routinely decode VP9 in software on phones.

Using NEON media instructions (aka ARMv7 and later) only. That's significant even if it is not a true ASIC hardware decoder, and it's not really true "software" decode, any more than AES-NI (crypto acceleration instructions in x86 CPUs) is "software crypto".

[schmidtbag]

Yeah, there are dozens, dozens of them, I tell you.

Quite naive if you think there's that few.

[starshipeleven]

Quite naive if you think there's that few.

Quite naive if you think there's so much.

[microcode]

Using NEON media instructions (aka ARMv7 and later) only. That's significant even if it is not a true ASIC hardware decoder, and it's not really true "software" decode, any more than AES-NI (crypto acceleration instructions in x86 CPUs) is "software crypto".

AES-NI is still software crypto, just like if you added a single-instruction ChaCha quarter round it would still be software. Sure, it's specialized, but AES-NI instructions can be, and in fact are, used for things other than AES encryption. And far more than these examples, packed SIMD (SSE2, NEON) is extremely standard, and very general-purpose. In fact, SSE2 is the only common way that floating point operations are used on x86.

[pal666]

hardware decoding does not stop working after 3 years

to stop working it has to start working. and it can't until you buy new hardware

[archsway]

to stop working it has to start working. and it can't until you buy one of the three 5 year old SoC's with upstream hardware video decoding support (but you still need to use a special video player as the driver doesn't use any of the standard APIs.)

If you're lucky, as well as MJPEG you also get h264 support.

Fixed that for you.

EDIT: And hopefully you picked a board without USB controllers that cause kernel panics if you don't insert the cable just so.

[Guest]

Note how we routinely decode VP9 in software on phones.

Most of the time it's simply not used, because vendors seem to not care about modern video codecs. H264 still rules there, and YouTube just serves that to mobile devices, which is sad.

I don't recall seeing hardware VP9 decoding on mobile devices.

[Guest]

It is better if you can view a AV1 file on older Hardware, than to have no way to open it. Hardware decoder need Kernel support so you will end up with a lot user who will rely on Software decoding until it is in the Mainline Kernel.
No sane person would throw out still good Hardware to get a new one with Hardware decoder for the new Codec. So you will have a lot of User that will rely on SW decoder And we have no AV1 Hardware decoder ready to buy yet(they are planed 2020)

Hardware decoder are mostly to improve Battery life. If your Device is always plugged in, it does not matter that much (As long as the CPU is fast enough for SW encoding)

Well i use my Odroid N2(arm64) as my main device at the moment. I can decode AV1 without problems 1080p30fps (could be more now i have not checked for the improvements of dav1d 0.5)

And for Encoding https://github.com/xiph/rav1e/issues/1754 rav1e does merge the Arm64 assembly from dav1d. It will take a lot of time to encode with it but why not use a Raspberry Pi like device that you have lying around in your closet. (maybe arm32 too)

As I've mentioned before, the standard approach seems to be simply serving H264 in that case as a fallback. Most ARM hardware is disposable anyway, and if you get 2 years of use out of it, you're very lucky. Smartphones are meant to be thrown out and replaced with something newer. If that bothers you, it's between manufacturers and you.