FFmpeg Adds VA-API HEVC/H.265 Hardware Acceleration Support

Last year Intel developers added HEVC decode support to VA-API followed a few months later by HEVC encode support to this Video Acceleration API used by the Intel open-source driver on Linux.

Intel developers added the HEVC/H.265 encode/decode support since on the hardware side it's capable with Skylake. With the support present in the Video Acceleration API, FFmpeg developers have implemented support for it within their software.

With this commit made today to FFmpeg, there's now HEVC hardware acceleration support via VA-API inside libavcodec. Last month, the GNOME folks did a similar move with exposing it inside GStreamer.