There May Finally Be Better ATI Linux Video Playback

[gbeauche]

So are you saying that they are going to expose UVD directly through VA-API now and there's no more need for the splitted-desktop VA-API -> XvBA wrapper? Or is this just another case of wishful thinking on your part just like the steam hoax.

Most likely, this is ATI OpenDecode, yet another API. Since it looks quite similar to XvBA, that should be simple to get a Linux implementation, probably with the same bugs though. And I am actually surprised this got released on Windows first.

[RoboJ1M]

I couldn't bear to go back to closed source drivers.
The open source ATI drivers are just too slick.
Roll on Gallium!
Or UVD3 or 4 or whichever gen will get a split UVD.
Probably won't matter anymore by that point.

However, even though I've got a 785G board plugged into my TV using the onboard with the open source drivers, Boxee (XBMC of course) uses shaders to accelerate the playback? At least it claims to. The advanced shaders doesn't work with the open drivers but the basic option does.

J.

[Mr James]

But AMD is likely very aware of the problem

Well it should be...we got AMD devs on the forum.

[RealNC]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODgwOQ

As far as I can tell, this doesn't decode H.264 video at all, like XvBA, VA-API and VDPAU.

[bridgman]

No, the first implementation is for MPEG-2, but that's probably the right place to start the learning curve.

Other video formats use most of the same core concepts and operations.

[HokTar]

No, the first implementation is for MPEG-2, but that's probably the right place to start the learning curve.

Other video formats use most of the same core concepts and operations.

Yes, and I haven't seen any news from Christian for about a month, no letters an mesa-dev and no commits for 2.5 weeks at fdo.
Well, I don't mean to bitch, but at least a status update would be nice, maybe even guesstimating when he plans to merge it to master and start to work on h264.

Basically this is the most important missing feature from r600g at the moment.

[bwat47]

Finally, amd's linux drivers have been improving a lot, with proper video play back and vsync they will finally be quite usuable

[miles]

If I understand AMD correctly, they're saying they need somebody to compromise their DRM on Windows so they can eventually allow us to use their video decode engine.

That's a healthy position. Only problem is nobody cares about cracking their DRM since it's a completely useless placebo when anybody already has access to the Blu-ray contents, the network content and the HDMI output.

[bridgman]

Actually no, that's not what we are saying, but I'm sure you knew that

What we are saying is that we need to be extremely careful when opening up anything around the video decode engine to avoid releasing anything which might compromise the DRM on other OSes.

[smitty3268]

What we are saying is that we need to be extremely careful when opening up anything around the video decode engine to avoid releasing anything which might compromise the DRM on other OSes.

See, when you say something like that it sounds like you're agreeing with Miles.

I really hope you don't get hacked, because I'm guessing it would be bad for AMD and I don't want the limited OSS support we have now to dry up.

Is anyone in the company nervous about this? Hackers can be a funny group, sometimes giving access even in a limited way can be enough to stave them off while an outright ban can draw attention. (See, PS3) NVidia allows people to use their hardware if they use the blob, AMD doesn't. Maybe that's enough of an argument to convince some skeptical suits?