Mac OS X hardware acceleration in 1.1?

[LinLan]

I was reading over at lifehacker.com when I saw this and was curious if similar work was being done on the Mac OS X platform.

[ajmas]

I haven't heard of anything in that direction. IMO, what would be beneficial is any work that adds OpenCL support to VLC or ffmpeg. It need not be purely OpenCL, but any cross-platform hardware acceleration solutions would potentially help all targeted VLC platforms, since work done for one system would benefit others. I have provided a feature request in ffmpeg, but at this point that's all it is.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No, since Apple doesn't provide an API...

[hankdysplasia]

Good news!

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/ ... n2267.html

There is a 90% chance I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think these are the API's necessary for hardware acceleration.

[ajmas]

The intro says "The Video Decode Acceleration framework is a C programming interface providing low-level access to the H.264 decoding capabilities of compatible GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. It is intended for use by advanced developers who specifically need hardware accelerated decode of video frames." and then states that this is available with MacOS X 10.6.3 onwards. This could certainly be of interest, even if it is limited to H.264, though I will let j-b pass judgement.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

The intro says "The Video Decode Acceleration framework is a C programming interface providing low-level access to the H.264 decoding capabilities of compatible GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. It is intended for use by advanced developers who specifically need hardware accelerated decode of video frames." and then states that this is available with MacOS X 10.6.3 onwards. This could certainly be of interest, even if it is limited to H.264, though I will let j-b pass judgement.

Yes, this is exactly what we want/need.
The API is simple and clear and should do what we want. We have to validate some part though and find someone that has the time to do it.

[hankdysplasia]

Woohoo!

My Mac Mini with a 9400M struggles on 1080p files but plays 720p files perfectly. Hopefully this takes care of that. As for just supporting h.264 - that's how almost all my video is encoded now and also what needs the most help from the graphics card. This will be great.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Woohoo!

My Mac Mini with a 9400M struggles on 1080p files but plays 720p files perfectly. Hopefully this takes care of that. As for just supporting h.264 - that's how almost all my video is encoded now and also what needs the most help from the graphics card. This will be great.

Calm down Noone has even started to code on it

[hankdysplasia]

Calm down Noone has even started to code on it

I was excited enough to hit the donate button. Not that that will speed anything up.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Calm down Noone has even started to code on it

I was excited enough to hit the donate button. Not that that will speed anything up.

Thanks for your donation, this means a lot for us.

[LinLan]

Calm down Noone has even started to code on it

I was excited enough to hit the donate button. Not that that will speed anything up.

Thanks for your donation, this means a lot for us.

We're glad to donate. VLC is one of the most used applications on the OS X platform and fills in gaps that Apple has left wide open.

[robzr]

Calm down Noone has even started to code on it

I was excited enough to hit the donate button. Not that that will speed anything up.

You motivated me; I just did the same. I've been using and recommending VLC for years, it's great and I can't wait for hardware h.264 acceleration on Macs!

I use a 2.53 gHz 9400M Mac Mini for my home theater and it starts dropping frames on high bitrate 1080p h.264 stuff (with large input buffer, MMap enabled - as far as I can tell it's a CPU bottleneck).

Also it would be great to lower the heat output and increase battery life while watching movies on my Macbook Pro!

Keep up the good work guys; it is appreciated and enjoyed.

regards,

Rob

[ajmas]

I have created a feature request, so that any developer who wants to do the work can take it: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3565

Edit: Turns out there was already a ticket for this: http://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3558

[LinLan]

It is almost as if I wanted it then it came true.

[hankdysplasia]

I have created a feature request, so that any developer who wants to do the work can take it: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3565

Edit: Turns out there was already a ticket for this: http://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3558

So am I reading the ticket correctly to say it is scheduled for release with VLC 1.2 in ~4 months?

[ajmas]

So am I reading the ticket correctly to say it is scheduled for release with VLC 1.2 in ~4 months?

That is the target, though it all depends if there are developers that have time to commit to the ticket.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I have created a feature request, so that any developer who wants to do the work can take it: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3565

Edit: Turns out there was already a ticket for this: http://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3558

So am I reading the ticket correctly to say it is scheduled for release with VLC 1.2 in ~4 months?

It is scheduled to "when someone does it".

[robzr]

I don't work on this project but I suspect that means there is a feature freeze so no more features in 1.1; so I think that means the earliest it could make it in would be 1.2 but it still hasn't been allocated.

Stable 64 bit OS X support w/ h.264 hardware acceleration would be sweeeeeet...

Rob

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I don't work on this project but I suspect that means there is a feature freeze so no more features in 1.1; so I think that means the earliest it could make it in would be 1.2 but it still hasn't been allocated.

Stable 64 bit OS X support w/ h.264 hardware acceleration would be sweeeeeet...

Rob

If the code is done and is Independent of other modules, (which I expect it to be), it will be merged back in the 1.1 branch.

[LinLan]

Give them time to code it and actually test it. Yes, we want hardware accelerated video immediately, but give them time.

I would post a snarky message here, but I don't want any more angry emails from j-b.

[iraebrasil]

Calm down Noone has even started to code on it

I was excited enough to hit the donate button. Not that that will speed anything up.

I've also donated motivated by this possibile new feature and the VLC team willfulness to deliver it!
VLC is awesome and is aways evolving to be more so. I'm a proud user and I'm glad to recommend it to others.
I also don't expect the donation to speed up development. Do it when you can, we'll be happy when it comes!

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

People are working on it, but it isn't that easy to do correctly for us :

[Dyason]

I saw Plex has implemented this, would that be of any help to the vlc developers?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

There is a working patch around the mailing list, it should come soon.

[fkuehne]

We received a basic patch to implement this feature. However, it will need more work from the original author as I lack the hardware (and time... *cough*) to do so... I assume we will have something working for 1.2 or a stable release of Lunettes (which will be a bit earlier I guess).

Edit: Please note: releasing 1.2 in 4 month doesn't sound like a realistic guess to me... ^^