[mythtvnz] AMD UVD2 support expected through VA-API

[Aaron Whitehouse]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 11:15 AM, Aaron Whitehouse wrote:
>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_xvba_vaapi&num=1
>>
>> It looks as though VA-API will be the way to get AMD/ATi's UVD2 support
>> in Gnu/Linux.
> One thing I have learned in relation to computers - any platform, any
> functionality - don't rely on promises of what is just around the
> corner. So in the meantime I will continue to recommend nVidia and
> vdpau :)

Further to my earlier email
(http://lists.ourshack.com/pipermail/mythtvnz/2009-November/008557.html )
UVD2 support on ATi cards through VA-API is now working in Gnu/Linux.

Some results of this are found here:
http://oscarbg.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-xvba-vaapi-backend.html
where he played 1080p H.264 with 3% CPU use.

Mplayer-vaapi seems to already support VA-API.

The full thread about this is here:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19983
I spent two hours reading through all the posts, but I wouldn't bother
doing the same.  The long and the short of it is that the feature works
with freely and publicly-downloadable files, but has not yet been
officially announced.

The AMD employee who works on Free drivers put it quite well:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=101503&postcount=370

He also summarised the architecture:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=101627&postcount=383

The differences between ATi's Free and closed drivers are discussed by
him here:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=100289&postcount=293

As a MythTV user and owner of a 780G (which has a UVD2 video decoder), I
would obviously be keen to see support make its way into MythTV.