Intel SandyBridge hardware accelerated FFDShow decoder (H264/VC1/MPEG2)

[jorton]

Has anyone tried this version of FFDShow within Sagetv?

Support/Updates,

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1358343

Files,

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qsdecoder/

The author is an Intel employee who took this on as a side project,

Eric Gur, Processor Client Application Engineer
Intel QuickSync Decoder author
Intel Corp.

[wayner]

What's the advantage of this - other than lowering the CPU load? But it is not like decoding video is a hard task for a Sandy Bridge processor in the first place.

I really wish more video transcoding software, like Handbrake, would support Quick Sync since that should help to speed up converting files to H.264. But the software that does support QS seems lacking in other areas.

[emveepee]

Hardware support for VC-1 is one reason this makes a lot of sense. The same code is also in LAV but it is always nice to have the ffdshow tryout option. Reading through the avsforum link H/W deinterlacing is on the todo list, also good to have. I have been thinking about the AMD APU's but reading this, is changing my mind.

Martin

[Fuzzy]

Aside from this, the other big advantage of ffdsow is subtitle support in the decoder. (including PGS) though I have never have it a serious shake.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by wayner

I really wish more video transcoding software, like Handbrake, would support Quick Sync since that should help to speed up converting files to H.264. But the software that does support QS seems lacking in other areas.

Remember, Handbrake just uses x264 for their encoder. I think there's still some hard feelings between Intel and the x264 developers. x264 want more direct access to the hardware behind Intel's QuickSync, so they can produce exactly the same output using QuickSync as their encoder. Intel, however, just gives software access to their encoder API. Inte's Quicksync encoder does not produce as good of output as x264's at the same bitrate.

I think some engineers at Intel are trying (or tried) to get Intel to open up Quicksync, but I'm not sure what happened there.

[wayner]

I didn't really notice a huge quality diff between QS and Handbrake when I did some tests. But I would prefer to go with a slightly higher bitrate for faster encodes.

Is it fair to say that QS has been a bit of a failure? About a year ago the only apps that supported it were Mediaespresso and Mediaconverter. I think it is also supported by babgvant's DTB, but I think that is about it. How come no one seems to be using this feature a year later when SB processors are becoming very popular?

Is it the same issue that you bring up re: this tiff between Intel and others?

[reggie14]

I think QuickSync has been a failure, but perhaps not for the same reason as you. I strongly suspect Intel imagined there would be much greater demand for video transcoders when they probably started designing Sandy Bridge ~6 years ago. It turns out they are really niche tools. Professionals are going to value quality much, much higher than speed, so professional tools will keep using proprietary encoders or x264. But, lots of consumer products now support QuickSync. Intel has a page with a short list of products:

Originally Posted by Intel

Arcsoft MediaConverter
Arcsoft MediaImpression
Badaboom Media Converter
Corel Digital Studio
CyberLink MediaEspresso
CyberLink PowerDirector
MainConcept
Movavi Video Converter
Roxio Creator

That list definitely isn't complete, as I know MediaCoder and DVDFab also support Quicksync. It seems like most tools that aren't based around x264 (e.g., Handbrake) support Quicksync.

So, just based on product support, it seems like people picked up QuickSync pretty quickly. I do know some people that encode stuff for iPods and iPads. One just uses whatever tool is easiest, and doesn't care at all about speed (and wouldn't know or care if QuickSync in being used in the product). The other person just uses Handbrake, because four years ago that's what I told him to use.

I think QuickSync has been about as successful as anyone could reasonably think it could have been. Quick frankly, I'm surprised Intel bothered to put it in Sandy Bridge. And having put it in, I'm kind of baffled they didn't open up the API so that professional tools and other media software could make use of the QuickSync engine.