H.264 VA-API Encode Comes To Gallium3D

[phoronix]

Phoronix: H.264 VA-API Encode Comes To Gallium3D

Thanks to work by AMD developers, there is support for accelerated H.264 video encoding with the VA-API implementation in Gallium3D...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=H264-VAAPi-Encode-Gallium3D

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Thanks, AMD! Hopefully early code will be stable with Pitivi.

[Nille_kungen]

I don't think anyone did apply for the GSoC for adding OpenMAX IL from Tizonia instead of Bellagio, does anyone else work on that?
I don't think to many wants to install the old unmaintained OpenMAX IL Bellagio.

[stqn]

Nice; any idea if it will enable high quality encoding, or if it is focussed on speed like the other hardware encoders I’ve heard about?

[Azrael5]

what about hardware decode support? thanks.

[Serafean]

what about hardware decode support? thanks.

That's done.

# vainfo

libva info: VA-API version 0.39.2
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/va/drivers/gallium_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_39
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.39 (libva 1.7.1)
vainfo: Driver version: mesa gallium vaapi
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Baseline           : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoPro

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Trinity [Radeon HD 7480D]

[Azrael5]

That's done.

# vainfo

libva info: VA-API version 0.39.2
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/va/drivers/gallium_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_39
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.39 (libva 1.7.1)
vainfo: Driver version: mesa gallium vaapi
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Baseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoPro

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Trinity [Radeon HD 7480D]

thanks for the answer: that's my return:

libva info: VA-API version 0.39.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

[DanL]

^Some distros have a separate package (Debian has mesa-va-drivers).

[puleglot]

thanks for the answer: that's my return:

libva info: VA-API version 0.39.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

If you have mesa <12.0.0, then you probably only have /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/gallium_drv_video.so, so you should export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=gallium. With mesa-12.0.0 and newer there are proper hardlinks, e. g. on gentoo:

$ ls -l /usr/lib64/va/drivers/
total 5608
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2867296 Jul  9 23:18 r600_drv_video.so
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2867296 Jul  9 23:18 radeonsi_drv_video.so

[schmidtbag]

For a moment I was like "uh... hasn't this been around for a while" but then I misread that it was encode. Pretty cool though - it'd be interesting to see some benchmarks, particularly ones that involve CPU and GPU usage.


Makes me wonder - for people who do screen recording on a discrete GPU, could you use VA-API encoding accelerated by an IGP? Seems like it'd be a great use to hardware that most people don't care about. Screen recording can usually be pretty demanding.