[FFmpeg-devel] GPU Hardware Acceleration [was Re: openCL support]

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Fri, January 4, 2013 2:47 am, compn wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2013 23:06:35 +1100 (EST), Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>>
>>On Thu, January 3, 2013 9:59 pm, Andrey Utkin wrote:
>>> 2012/12/31 Roger Pack <rogerdpack2 at gmail.com>:
>>>> I wish I had time to implement bindings to
>>>> https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-codec-libraries (nvcuvenc).  There
>>>>  "may" be libraries for nvcuvenc for linux, I haven't looked into it
>>>> too much, but
>>>>  every so often people that do live streaming using ffmpeg "wish" they
>>>>  could use their graphics card for encoding, to save on cpu, so it
>>>> might
>>>>  be interesting.
>>>
>>> Nvidia H.264 encoding library is not available for linux, only for
>>> windows.
>>> There is a commercial multi-platform library leveraging Nvidia GPU
>>> from MainConcept. BTW it utilizes CPU quite noticeably, still its
>>> performance figured out to be not interesting in comparsion with
>>> x264...
>>>
>>
>>Pretty much the same thing with AMD/ATI. They have commercial drivers and
>>basically a completely proprietary version of ffmpeg that runs on *nix
>> but
>>they refuse to open source all the code so it can be used by the
>
> they are distributing actual ffmpeg? i like to keep a list of big
> companies that use the project.
>

AMD has an equivalent proprietary codebase to ffmpeg that they provide to
their big corporate customers with fully realised GPU support. They might
occasionally release code snippets from this library to the open source
world but most of the work that has been done is kept completely private
and it costs several thousand dollars a year to get close to it. In
addition they are sponsoring the development of an effective rewrite of
Blender in python no less as a proprietary Linux solution. They even
suggested that we reverse engineer the codebase from the fake blender app
so we could get access to latest GPU features.

After discussing with their Head of Multimedia Technology and their CTO
Mark Papermaster (ex. Apple) among several other representatives the only
conclusion is they are not interested in fully supporting open source
solutions even when they are the best tools in the world and are being
treated with kiddie gloves all the way through the process.

>>opensource community. They see ffmpeg and opensource multimedia in
>> general
>>as a threat to their proprietary corporate benefactors who have put a lot
>>of pressure on them not to cooperate with the open source community.
>
> many users would be happy to have binary encoding support even.
>
>>Over here we have discussed it with them for the past year right up to
>> the
>
> Thank you for trying.
>

Still trying but it might require AMD going bankrupt first before they
will embrace open source multimedia solutions as a viable market for their
hardware. They might also have to fire the entire marketing department and
management team to get rid of the people in the pocket of third party
interests who are holding up the development progress.

Still there is a little hope that ARM will convince them to be more
supportive as part of the HSA platform makeover if it actually gets off
the ground.

>>What they fail to see is that open source and Linux in particular
>>represent the best way for them increase their rapidly diminishing bottom
>>line. Not only is Linux the most widely used operating system on the
>
> i think amd/ati's problems go deeper than just linux support. probably
> more into forgetting to have competitive research teams working on the
> next big thing, like lower-watt multicore gpu.
>


AMD have a problem with focusing too much attention on the ever dwindling
PC gamer market instead of the needs of small/medium businesses. They just
don't get open source development. It's so bad that developers from Intel
are writing the open source Linux drivers for the ATI chipsets in their
spare time and AMD just laid off their entire Linux Kernel Team in Dresden
to cut costs.

What kind of moron lets go of the only option they have for making
progress on the Linux/OpenSource platform in order to cut costs while also
putting all their eggs into Redmonds basket of ever dwindling market
share?



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd