FFmpeg Expands Its NVDEC CUDA-Accelerated Video Decoding

[TheLexMachine]

Isn't "Cross-platform" and "CUDA" a contradiction in itself?

CUDA runs on Linux/OS X/Android and Windows, so no.

[coder]

Unfortunately, there really is no choice on Linux.

FWIW, there's preliminary support for NVDEC and NVENC in GStreamer. Off hand, I don't know of a media player app that uses GStreamer, but that would be one way to use it.

[nanonyme]

I wish nVidia stopped this stupid fragmentation of video decoding on Linux

[lowflyer]

CUDA runs on Linux/OS X/Android and Windows, so no.

in plain english "Platform" is not equal to "Operating System".

CUDA does not run on my Windows PC, neither does it on my Linux PC. Equally no luck on my Laptop. (Hint: they're all AMD and Intel based) To reason that "because of Tegra there is cross-platform" is a stretch that makes your spine snap.

Beyond that, nvidia does not seem to be interested to promote this "CUDA" thingy beyond their own brand. They use it as a tool to attract customers to their Platform. So:

cross platform? - NOPE!

[GruenSein]

Possibly, someone could write a VAAPI wrapper driver around nvenc to make it available to all applications without developer ressources to maintain multiple acceleration methods...

[TheLexMachine]

Possibly, someone could write a VAAPI wrapper driver around nvenc to make it available to all applications without developer ressources to maintain multiple acceleration methods...

A back-end for the new NV processes is likely in the works or at least percolating in someone's noggin, but that won't be around for at least another year or two. The processes are too new and unknown to devs to be fully functional for that and the sooner FFMPEG advances with the functionality, the sooner a back-end can be developed.

[TheLexMachine]

I wish nVidia stopped this stupid fragmentation of video decoding on Linux

They are simply following the wishes of the Linux overlords. How many times have you seen people on this and other Linux forums foaming at the mouth while shouting "LINUX IS ALL ABOUT CHOICES!". That same mentality is exactly what has kept Linux from being successful.

[nanonyme]

They are simply following the wishes of the Linux overlords. How many times have you seen people on this and other Linux forums foaming at the mouth while shouting "LINUX IS ALL ABOUT CHOICES!". That same mentality is exactly what has kept Linux from being successful.

Sorry but NVENC is all about vendor lock-in and nothing about how Linux ecosystem normally works

[solazs]

...

As for mpv, it's shit. It has no interface to speak of and you have to do everything via command line. you can download a GUI wrapper for it, but I've never gotten it to work and I only get nothing but crash messages when I try to use it. The NVDEC support with it is not solid yet because it's the older version of NVDEC that was called CUVID, which did not use the video decoding block - NVDEC can use the video decoding hardware like VDPAU did AND it also has the option of using the CUDA shaders - and shunted the video to the CUDA cores, so it's not good for much of anything right now. Unfortunately, there really is no choice on Linux. VLC is really as good as it gets until someone comes up with something better, which nobody is going to do or likely can do at this point.

I've been using smplayer + mpv for years, best multimedia experience on linux ever. Arch keeps things pretty fresh, so ffmpeg 2 is not an issue here.
Actually I've just started using the nvdec hw decoder as VDPAU is buggy with my GTX 1060 and causes the whole system to freeze.

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1024285/linux/-vdpau-bug-certain-h-264-videos-cause-hardware-errors-nvrm-xid-pci-0000-01-00-68-ccmds/

About nvidia vs. openness:
When I started using linux (around 2007), nvidia drivers were great. Closed-source, but great. Then I got an optimus laptop and had to revert to windows for a year due to lack of drivers. Nowadays AMD support is getting better, but had nvidia worked well in my last desktop (I'm using a desktop again with a single nvidia card), things should be fine w/o the optimus stuff.
Well, they aren't. Bugs, crashes across the board accompanied by various nvidia kernel driver error messages. The worst is, that the only way to get real technical support is their forum, on which they pretty much ignore some issues.

And we haven't even started on the wayland-gbm-eglstream issue.

My AMD powered hybrid graphics work laptop took weeks to figure out how to use the dedicated card without the system hanging, but it was developed, I awaited each new kernel, because it made things better.

All in all, I'm thinking about buying AMD next time.