Video hardware decoding vs software

I understand that hardware encoding is a thing, but what is the benefit of that over software encoding. Dec 04, 2018 power consumption will get sharply increased in software decoding, almost 7688mw for 1080p and 14400mw for 4k 2160p video. This often results in choppy playback and battery drain heavy cpu usage. How to enable hardware decoding and check whether it works.

Hello when i use software decoder to play a video, seeking is fast but rotating a video is slow sluggish. I dont know if thats using hardware encoding, but from memory doesnt that use the cpu i3i5i7 onchip quick sync video hardware encoder. As ts decoding operations can be computationally intensive, allowing the receiving device to also handle the decoding of the incoming stream effectively alleviates the need to tie up the host systems cpu with that burden and, instead, leaves the cpu free to tackle other processes. This is called hardware decoding playback or hardware encoding producing the video. What is the difference between hardware decoding and software decoding. Use ffmpeg libstagefright overview of libstagefright or use libstagefright in the os directly, like here.

If the hardware sucks or youre not telling the controls to use adequate bitrate youll end up with mediocre results. Elgato game capture hd and hardware accelerated decoding and. The primary resource that is consumed with software decoding is cpu time. So long as the instructions sets are the same, we are dealing with identical images, regardless of who manufactures the hardware. Oct 04, 2012 video comes into a hardware encoder to a media gateway, which will make adjustments to the video stream to address network conditions and the end users video decoding device.

I have a question when it comes to software vs hardware and what i should be using and overall how they work. By default in most computers and applications the cpu is taxed, first and foremost, before other pieces of hardware are. Amd app acceleration speed up the dvdfab performance by. When hardwareaccelerated decoding is not compatible with a video file, plex media server will automatically use normal software decoding.

In some cases, it can let the graphic card perform postprocessing and rendering of the decoded video. If it helps, my card is a 2gb gtx760 and ive got an i5 2500k processor, and have. Hardware vs software difference and comparison diffen. Maxwell gen1s hardware decoder is fast, but still slower than intel haswell quicksync.

For hardware decode, amdnvidia graphic cards dating back to 2007ish. When hardware accelerated decoding is not compatible with a video file, plex media server will automatically use normal software decoding. Cisco is a manufacturer of videoconferencing equipment, and their thor contributions aim at reasonable compression at only moderate complexity. The main a6 processor is not using or spending cycles decoding video, it has essentially outsourced that job to a highly specialized worker. This article will cover potential methods of and the development around hardware accelerated video decoding. Video encode and decode gpu support matrix nvidia developer. Are you ready for the modernday compendium on the state of hardware accelerated transcoding performance and video quality. This is the most efficient way to go in terms of processor resources and electrical consumption. Gpu to accelerate decoding of video streams depending on the video codec, graphic card model and operating system.

Hardware decoding vs software decoding would be mentioned most in the field of hd 4k h264 hevc videos playback. It means there is a small chip on the motherboard specifically dedicated to decoding h264 video. This class of dvb device features an onboard hardware mpeg decoder ic. Hardware accelerated video decoding is the when a video playback software application offload portions of the video decoding process to the gpu graphic hardware, it does this by executing specific code algorithms on the gpu.

The white boxes represent software supplied by microsoft, and the shaded box represents the component provided by hardware vendors. The vlc media player framework can use your graphics chip a. Power consumption will get sharply increased in software decoding, almost 7688mw for 1080p and 14400mw for 4k 2160p video. Nov 03, 2017 a blog by brad kult, hga architects, and engineers over the past several years there has been a shift from hardware to software video conferencing. Decode searches for the sequence header a sequence parameter set in h. I assume it means my graphics card when it says hardware video. Not sure if i should be using hardware or software decoding in my iptv. The hardware decoder is usually part of the video card any nvidia or ati has had it for a while. The primary complexity concern is for software decoding, since hardware support will take time to reach users. Hardwarebased dvd decoding windows drivers microsoft docs. Oct 30, 2019 now that you know some details about software vs. Amd vs nvidia from another point of view streaming, video. As i have search on the web, i have found a few ways to perform hardware accelerated video decoding on android. However, youve encountered one of the problems with hardware encoding.

These hardware encoders does not require high maintenance. To reiterate, hardware encoders are more reliable, as they are built just to encode and transmit. This post addresses the benefits of using a hardware encoder vs. Sep 04, 2016 decoding the first frame is a special case, since decode does not provide enough configuration parameters to correctly process the bitstream. Computers using microsoft dvd support both dvd storage and, if the proper decoding hardware or software is present, dvd decoding and playback. Consequently, hardware decoding has an edge over software decoding in this round. Hardware decoding vs software decoding a case study of 5kplayer.

The ovals represent hardware supplied by ihvs and oems. What is the difference between hardware decoding and software. But decoding hevc using software consumes more cpu power. The media source has a hardware decoding switch and should use it when possible by default. Software decoding ignores all that and uses only cpu for processing the video. Now, you know a thing or two about the differences between hardware decoding and software decoding and their respective advantages.

Enterprise level software, or soft codecs, include microsoft skype, cisco webex, gotomeeting, zoom, bluejeans, join. Summary of decodeencode hardware support steam remote play. What is hardware acceleration and why does it matter make. Unable to use hardware decoder, falling back parsec. How to use hardware accelerated video decoding on android. Why hardware encoders are better for live streaming. Hw accelerated encode and decode are supported on nvidia geforce, quadro, tesla, and grid products with fermi, kepler.

Softwarebased decoding is a different beast altogether. This dedicated hardware for hardware encoding gives the low latency while streaming. As a video editing and processing intensive software, dvdfab has also applied this cuttingedge hardware acceleration technology in a couple of its products while decoding h. Nov 27, 20 im sorry, but i dont know how to enable hardware decoding while playing videos at all. Compared with average hevc converting software, its more efficient to built a hevc hardware decoder into chips to decode h. This report of a control experiment intends to examine high quality video playback performance in a software decoding environment and a hardware decoding environment with dearmobs hardware accelerated 5kplayer as the subject. Software based decoding is a different beast altogether. When done, it will send these modifications to the video decoder.

Oct 04, 2016 if its a video source it would be the task of the video source plugin or media source in studio. Download article download enabling highperformance video encoding, decoding, and preprocessing pdf 619kb. If hardware decoding is possible, use hardware decoding and leave software decoding for anything that the hardware decoder doesnt support. Exact capabilities will depend on what youre using for the. Hardware is a physical device, something that one is able to touch and see. Today we investigate the advantages and disadvantages of hardware vs software streamingrecording setups and why you might choose one over the. Software decoding and hardware decoding videohelp forum. Hardware acceleration is a term used to describe tasks being offloaded to devices and hardware which specialize in it. Hardware accelerated video player 5kplayer is put to test the cpu workload when playing 1080p, 4k, and 4k hdr videos on windows 10 in a. What is hardware video decoding, and should i enable it. I was wondering if i might want to pick up a newer video card to try hardware encoding on my host amd hd 7750 so i did a bit of web searching today to try and find out what hardware supports hardware encoding decoding of h. Theoretically, hardware encoding should be more efficient and be much faster than software. Software is a program, such as an operating system or a web browser, that is able to instruct a computers hardware to perform a specific. The video source for classic is not developed anymore and as far as i remember did not offer this switch.

While this is fine in most general usage cases, especially if someone has a strong cpu, there are others. Because i dont know whether mpv is now using hardware decoding, i added an option hwdec. So i have an nvidia gtx 970 frozr and under obs i see the option to use nvnec to encode. Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available. However, for webrtc, live encoding performance is also relevant, which is ciscos agenda.

It provides the medium quality of video than software encoding. What is the difference between hardware decoding and. Software encoders can run well, but their speed can depend on of the computing device on which theyre installed. By default, does mpv play videos with hardware decoding. Apr 21, 2011 always try to use first the hardware decoding it uses system optimization to ensure smooth playback. Software and hardware decoding can produce the same results hardware is running software to do the decoding, but as its hard wired, it runs it quicker than software running on a general purpose processor. Hardware decoding vs software decoding in 4k h264h265 video. When the dedicated hardware is not present, the decoding encoding process will be left to the cpu, which is way less efficient at doing so, as a cpu is designed for general purpose, not dedicated to do that specific task. Enabling highperformance video encoding, decoding, and.

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