Totem May Handle Video Acceleration Better With GStreamer VA-API 0.7

If you are a user of GNOME's Totem video player, it looks like video hardware acceleration via the Video Acceleration API (VA-API) is working out better for users if using the new GStreamer-VAAPI v0.7 release.

Earlier this month marked the release of GStreamer VA-API 0.7. This plug-in release added VP9 decoder support, fixes and optimizations for H.265/HEVC, better support for different OpenGL platforms and APIs, Wayland fixes, and a variety of other fixes.

Developer Olav Vitters wrote in a blog post yesterday that it's looking like this release is allowing video hardware acceleration to work better for GNOME's Totem. He's testing from an Intel NUC5PPYH that features a Pentium N3700, which is a quad-core part running at 1.6GHz with a 2.4GHz Turbo frequency. The Pentium N3700 features basic HD Graphics.

The VA-API video hardware acceleration from this lightweight Pentium NUC allows him to watch movies with just 6~7% CPU usage, which is just a few percent more than MPV video player. For Mageia users out there, he's planning to make VA-API support be installed by default on supported platforms.

More details via Olav's blog.