[MPlayer-users] vaapi support in mplayer.

[Reimar Döffinger]

On 12.05.2014, at 20:18, Christian Dysthe <cdysthe at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am using SMPlayer with mplayer in Ubuntu as my main media player and
> it works great. A know-it-all friend of mine asked whether the player
> support vaapi since I have a Intel 4000 graphics on my laptop. I looked
> into it and mplayer does not support vaapi.

It kind of does via libva-gl which translates VDPAU to vaapi.

> My friend then told me to
> use VLC since that player does have vaapi support, but he could not tell
> me how much better playback would be. I am currently using Intel
> Textured Video (xv) output and playback quality is great without tearing
> or any other problems. Am I missing out in playback quality by not
> having vaapi support and am I using the best output option by using
> Intel Textured Vido (xv)? 

There is no quality difference in the video, there is only one way to decode H.264.
With streams or other sources that might contain errors you would probably get worse quality.
The only purpose of vaapi etc. is to reduce CPU and energy usage.
For low-resolution videos you can get better quality of subtitles by using e.g. -vo gl or vdpau.