2010-11-18, 21:59
Temar Wrote:No, the reason is much simpler: ATI/AMD did not release any specs on the hardware which is used for video decoding (UVD). If we will ever see an open source implementation for hardware video decoding it will be purely based on shaders as XvBA is only available when signing a NDA.
I knew this was the case, yet this is the case will ALL GPUs on the market (Crystal HD is only exception). If the open source community has to wait until a non-NDA decoder hits the market, we will never see a open source driver decode x264. Even Intel keeps that code hidden.
I thought efforts were going into a shader based decoding method once gallium was done. A shader based method would work on all GPUs - Intel and AMD. It would also offer very robust decoding (something like VDPAU).
The real problem though is not the open source driver (which is ALWAYS behind) but the closed driver and its VAAPI support. Currently VAAPI lacks many features and the overal robustness of VDPAU. Till that changes nothing really improves in the Linux AMD HTPC market...