[mythtvnz] VLC and VDPAU

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 8:21 PM, Brett Miller <blmiller at slingshot.co.nz> wrote:
> Don't think it's VDPAU directly..this would make it nVidia only with only
> low level driver.
> The idea is to use VA-API layer so this could work with more hardware.
> Also allows others apps to use GPU processing without building in direct low
> level drivers.
> Disclaimer: This could be wrong.

The fact is that nvidia are the only company to make hardware video
decoding available on linux.

vdpau is their api. others can use that api if they wish, but probably
won't. I mean what would happen if all car manufacturers had chosen at
some point to make the accelerator on the right, the brake in the
middle and the clutch on the left. Heavens it woul dmean someone could
get out of a ford and drive a dodge. heaven forbid!!

But I digress, va-api is an alternative api, but get this - no one has
implemented it. So you can use it in the expectation that someone
might implement it. Or you can use it as a wrapper to vdpau - in other
words you build your software to use the va-api interface, and then
use a wrapper layer to convert the va-api calls into vdpau calls. You
still use vdpau at the end of the day, but you make your code
(hopefully) portable for whenever and if ever other manufacturers
implement one or other standards.

>
> Where does fit with openCL, CUDA & openGL & ATI's firestarter ??
>

ATI are bullshit for drivers.