[FFmpeg-devel] GPU Hardware Acceleration [was Re: openCL support]

[Don Moir]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patrick Shirkey" <pshirkey at boosthardware.com>
To: "FFmpeg development discussions and patches" <ffmpeg-devel at ffmpeg.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] GPU Hardware Acceleration [was Re: openCL support]


>
> On Fri, January 4, 2013 2:47 am, compn wrote:
>> On Thu, 3 Jan 2013 23:06:35 +1100 (EST), Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>>>
>>>On Thu, January 3, 2013 9:59 pm, Andrey Utkin wrote:
>>>> 2012/12/31 Roger Pack <rogerdpack2 at gmail.com>:
>>>>> I wish I had time to implement bindings to
>>>>> https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-codec-libraries (nvcuvenc).  There
>>>>>  "may" be libraries for nvcuvenc for linux, I haven't looked into it
>>>>> too much, but
>>>>>  every so often people that do live streaming using ffmpeg "wish" they
>>>>>  could use their graphics card for encoding, to save on cpu, so it
>>>>> might
>>>>>  be interesting.
>>>>
>>>> Nvidia H.264 encoding library is not available for linux, only for
>>>> windows.
>>>> There is a commercial multi-platform library leveraging Nvidia GPU
>>>> from MainConcept. BTW it utilizes CPU quite noticeably, still its
>>>> performance figured out to be not interesting in comparsion with
>>>> x264...
>>>>
>>>
>>>Pretty much the same thing with AMD/ATI. They have commercial drivers and
>>>basically a completely proprietary version of ffmpeg that runs on *nix
>>> but
>>>they refuse to open source all the code so it can be used by the
>>
>> they are distributing actual ffmpeg? i like to keep a list of big
>> companies that use the project.
>>
>
> AMD has an equivalent proprietary codebase to ffmpeg that they provide to
> their big corporate customers with fully realised GPU support. They might
> occasionally release code snippets from this library to the open source
> world but most of the work that has been done is kept completely private
> and it costs several thousand dollars a year to get close to it. In
> addition they are sponsoring the development of an effective rewrite of
> Blender in python no less as a proprietary Linux solution. They even
> suggested that we reverse engineer the codebase from the fake blender app
> so we could get access to latest GPU features.
>
> After discussing with their Head of Multimedia Technology and their CTO
> Mark Papermaster (ex. Apple) among several other representatives the only
> conclusion is they are not interested in fully supporting open source
> solutions even when they are the best tools in the world and are being
> treated with kiddie gloves all the way through the process.
>
>>>opensource community. They see ffmpeg and opensource multimedia in
>>> general
>>>as a threat to their proprietary corporate benefactors who have put a lot
>>>of pressure on them not to cooperate with the open source community.
>>
>> many users would be happy to have binary encoding support even.
>>
>>>Over here we have discussed it with them for the past year right up to
>>> the
>>
>> Thank you for trying.
>>
>
> Still trying but it might require AMD going bankrupt first before they
> will embrace open source multimedia solutions as a viable market for their
> hardware. They might also have to fire the entire marketing department and
> management team to get rid of the people in the pocket of third party
> interests who are holding up the development progress.
>
> Still there is a little hope that ARM will convince them to be more
> supportive as part of the HSA platform makeover if it actually gets off
> the ground.
>
>>>What they fail to see is that open source and Linux in particular
>>>represent the best way for them increase their rapidly diminishing bottom
>>>line. Not only is Linux the most widely used operating system on the
>>
>> i think amd/ati's problems go deeper than just linux support. probably
>> more into forgetting to have competitive research teams working on the
>> next big thing, like lower-watt multicore gpu.
>>
>
>
> AMD have a problem with focusing too much attention on the ever dwindling
> PC gamer market instead of the needs of small/medium businesses. They just
> don't get open source development. It's so bad that developers from Intel
> are writing the open source Linux drivers for the ATI chipsets in their
> spare time and AMD just laid off their entire Linux Kernel Team in Dresden
> to cut costs.
>
> What kind of moron lets go of the only option they have for making
> progress on the Linux/OpenSource platform in order to cut costs while also
> putting all their eggs into Redmonds basket of ever dwindling market
> share?

Where are you guys getting your market share numbers from ?

http://www.google.com/search?q=windows+linux+mac+market+share&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RfjlUO_zCI6E8ATGh4Ew&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=735