As of today, it is possible to build FFmpeg with VAAPI, which, on supported systems, allows you to encode VP9 on the Intel Integrated GPU.
The new encoder, when ffmpeg is compiled with VAAPI support, is called vp9_vaapi
.
To see available options to use when tuning the encoder, run:
ffmpeg -hide-banner -h encoder=vp9_vaapi
Output:
Encoder vp9_vaapi [VP9 (VAAPI)]:
General capabilities: delay
Threading capabilities: none
Supported pixel formats: vaapi_vld
vp9_vaapi AVOptions:
-loop_filter_level <int> E..V.... Loop filter level (from 0 to 63) (default 16)
-loop_filter_sharpness <int> E..V.... Loop filter sharpness (from 0 to 15) (default 4)
What happens when you try to pull this off on unsupported hardware, say Skylake?
See the sample output below:
[Parsed_format_0 @ 0x42cb500] compat: called with args=[nv12]
[Parsed_format_0 @ 0x42cb500] Setting 'pix_fmts' to value 'nv12'
[Parsed_scale_vaapi_2 @ 0x42cc300] Setting 'w' to value '1920'
[Parsed_scale_vaapi_2 @ 0x42cc300] Setting 'h' to value '1080'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] Setting 'video_size' to value '3840x2026'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] Setting 'pix_fmt' to value '0'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] Setting 'time_base' to value '1/1000'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] Setting 'pixel_aspect' to value '1/1'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] Setting 'sws_param' to value 'flags=2'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] Setting 'frame_rate' to value '24000/1001'
[graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x42cce00] w:3840 h:2026 pixfmt:yuv420p tb:1/1000 fr:24000/1001 sar:1/1 sws_param:flags=2
[format @ 0x42cba40] compat: called with args=[vaapi_vld]
[format @ 0x42cba40] Setting 'pix_fmts' to value 'vaapi_vld'
[auto_scaler_0 @ 0x42cd580] Setting 'flags' to value 'bicubic'
[auto_scaler_0 @ 0x42cd580] w:iw h:ih flags:'bicubic' interl:0
[Parsed_format_0 @ 0x42cb500] auto-inserting filter 'auto_scaler_0' between the filter 'graph 0 input from stream 0:0' and the filter 'Parsed_format_0'
[AVFilterGraph @ 0x42ca360] query_formats: 6 queried, 4 merged, 1 already done, 0 delayed
[auto_scaler_0 @ 0x42cd580] w:3840 h:2026 fmt:yuv420p sar:1/1 -> w:3840 h:2026 fmt:nv12 sar:1/1 flags:0x4
[hwupload @ 0x42cbcc0] Surface format is nv12.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42ccbc0] Created surface 0x4000000.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42ccbc0] Direct mapping possible.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000001.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Direct mapping possible.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000002.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000003.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000004.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000005.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000006.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000007.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000008.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x4000009.
[AVHWFramesContext @ 0x42c3e40] Created surface 0x400000a.
[vp9_vaapi @ 0x409da40] Encoding entrypoint not found (19 / 6).
Error initializing output stream 0:0 -- Error while opening encoder for output stream #0:0 - maybe incorrect parameters such as bit_rate, rate, width or height
[AVIOContext @ 0x40fdac0] Statistics: 0 seeks, 0 writeouts
[aac @ 0x40fcb00] Qavg: -nan
[AVIOContext @ 0x409f820] Statistics: 32768 bytes read, 0 seeks
Conversion failed!
The interesting bits are the entrypoint warnings for VP9 encoding being absent on this particular platform, as confirmed by vainfo's output:
libva info: VA-API version 0.40.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/local/lib/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_40
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.40 (libva 1.7.3)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Skylake - 1.8.4.pre1 (glk-alpha-71-gc3110dc)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointEncPicture
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
The VLD (for Variable Length Decode) entry point for VP9 profile 0 is the furthest that Skylake comes to in terms of VP9 hardware-acceleration.
These with Kabylake test beds, run these encode tests and report back :-)
Great writeup, and welcome to Super User! – slhck – 2017-04-04T08:08:53.383
Thanks for the answer. What FFmpeg arguments can I use to encode VP9 with VA-API? I saw that the FFmpeg source has a file named 'vaapi_vp9.c'. I will try what you suggested above to speed up the process. – Billy – 2017-04-05T21:16:16.700
VA-API can be used to provide both hardware accelerated encoding and decoding, and in this case it's only decoding unfortunately. A less known fact about FFmpeg is that it actually has video playback functionality as well; Google Chrome and the Linux version of Firefox use it to play video and audio. The binary FFmpeg provides for playback is
ffplay
. (Also, I corrected a mistake in my comment: the quality switches are actually-quality good
,-quality realtime
etc, not just-good
or-realtime
.) – veikk0 – 2017-04-05T23:04:32.103Actually, I take that back. There are news articles that indicate VP9 encode support being present in VA-API but I can't find anything definite and I can't be asked to dig around source code right now. You should probably take a look here and here. I'd start with checking if FFmpeg has been built with
– veikk0 – 2017-04-05T23:49:53.243--enable-vaapi
and if yes, runningffmpeg -decoders | grep vaapi
andffmpeg -h encoder=<encodername>
. I have an AMD CPU so I can't test this myself.Okay, thanks. I'll look into those tomorrow. – Billy – 2017-04-06T00:26:14.990
@user13178 Please see the below answer – it is now possible to build ffmpeg with hardware-based VP9 encoding support. You may want to [edit] your post. – slhck – 2017-06-30T16:04:50.273
Hello @Billy, see my answer below. – 林正浩 – 2017-08-03T10:24:39.543