Texas Instruments Proposes Extending DRI2 For Video

Rob Clark of Texas Instruments has proposed to X.Org developers that the DRI2 protocol be extended so that overlays can display video content, as a possible replacement to X-Video or for a client-side X-Video API on top of DRI2.

A few extra parameters are needed in order for Direct Rendering Infrastructure 2 to handle displaying video content. While DRI2 is mostly about 3D and not video, some processes are similar and there is a lot of infrastructure connection between the two, which is why Rob Clark is looking to extend the DRI2 protocol. However, if developers prefer not doing so, he's willing to create a new protocol instead. Whatever the outcome, Texas Instruments is willing to make the necessary X Server infrastructure changes.

Why do this work? "Current solutions use the GPU to do a scaled/colorconvert into a DRI2 buffer from the client context. The goal of this protocol change is to push the decision to use overlay or GPU blit to the xorg driver. Eventually this should replace Xv. With a few additions, like attributes, it could perhaps be possible to implement the client side Xv API on top of dri2."

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