Media (Intel® Video Processing Library, Intel Media SDK)
Access community support with transcoding, decoding, and encoding in applications using media tools like Intel® oneAPI Video Processing Library and Intel® Media SDK
Announcements
The Intel Media SDK project is no longer active. For continued support and access to new features, Intel Media SDK users are encouraged to read the transition guide on upgrading from Intel® Media SDK to Intel® Video Processing Library (VPL), and to move to VPL as soon as possible.
For more information, see the VPL website.

Linux support for the SDK

vsofts-team
Beginner
1,255 Views
Server based media processing applications most often are based on linux.

Can you guys please cut out the marketing BS. We know that you don't support linux and you only support windows. That's been the story for the last couple of years.

Please explain the reasons?

Are there any plans to support the customer base and offer linux support?

0 Kudos
9 Replies
Eric_S_Intel
Employee
1,255 Views

The reasons? The Media SDK is a middleware API. Getting the Media SDK out on Linux involves many other groups/divisions within Intel working together to develop the drivers, validate those drivers, to support it, etc.

We cant comment on products that havent been officially put down in our plan of record, so it might look like we dance around the question but really we arent. We collect all the input and feed it into product planning decisions are made, resources allocated and the plan communicated.

Right now, we are focused on developing the 2012 product for next years platforms. When and If a version of the Media SDK on Linux makes the plan, Ill be posting the news immediately. No BS.

-Eric

Media SDK Team Support/Enabling Manager

0 Kudos
rzr
Beginner
1,255 Views
0 Kudos
trivee
Beginner
1,255 Views
Eric, thanks for an honest and straightforward response.

But to complete the picture, I feel compelled to quote from http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/vcsource-tools-media-sdk/ (retrieved on June 8, 2012):

A multi-platform API for media application development

Intel Media SDK 2012 is the software development library that exposes Intel platforms' industry-leading media acceleration capabilities (encoding, decoding and transcoding). The library API is cross-platform and cross-operating systems with software fallback, allowing developers to simply code once for today's and future chipsets. With a forward scalable interface, plus easy-to-use coding samples and documentation, developers can gain a time-to-market, competitive advantage for their programs to have the best power and performance characteristics. Applications built with the Intel Media SDK 2012 deliver a highly consistent, rich quality media user experience across all platforms and devices. It's free - start unleashing the power of your software by downloading the Intel Media SDK 2012.


Whoever wrote this copy didn't quite get the concepts of "multi-platform" and "cross-operating systems" :(
0 Kudos
mukiex
Beginner
1,255 Views

Okay, rather than complain or pout, I really need to ask: What would it take? 2 years with no update, and I think I can probably assume it's not gonna happen.

I'm on my second "Bridge" Intel processor. I've got an i7-2600k powering my desktop (I've NEVER been this satisfied with a processor in my LIFE), and an i5-3570k powering my guest PC (running Ubuntu). The last time I checked, the encoding diff between the latest i7 in software and doing it via Quick Sync is going from 4x realtime to nearly 26x realtime.

I can't be only only person out there running Linux on one of these bad boys that outright salivates at the thought of such a performance increase, let alone the drop to 10-12% general CPU utilization.

I mean, I'm being honest here. If the only thing standing in the way is resources (e.g. hiring or moving a software engineer to porting Quick Sync functionality to Linux), toss us a bone. I'd be more than happy to chip in to a kickstarter or similar style project, especially if the end-game was an ffmpeg PPA entry.

0 Kudos
Ryan_T_Intel
Employee
1,255 Views

We appreciate the candid frustration with the lack of Linux support at this time. For obvious reasons, we can't disclose non-public roadmaps or technology futures in a public forum. That being said, for all developers interested in having a deeper discussion, provide insight on your specific use cases,please do not hesitate to contact me directly at ryan.tabrah@intel.com. You can also follow me on twitter @IntelMediaSDK.Please continue to utilize this forum for all technical issues.

-Ryan Tabrah
Intel Media SDK Product Manager
0 Kudos
Michael_Chou
Beginner
1,255 Views

We appreciate the candid frustration with the lack of Linux support at this time. For obvious reasons, we can't disclose non-public roadmaps or technology futures in a public forum. That being said, for all developers interested in having a deeper discussion, provide insight on your specific use cases,please do not hesitate to contact me directly at ryan.tabrah@intel.com. You can also follow me on twitter @IntelMediaSDK.Please continue to utilize this forum for all technical issues.

-Ryan Tabrah
Intel Media SDK Product Manager

Intel released Open Source HD Graphics Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM) forIvy Bridge here:
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html
I notice one of the documents: Volume 2 Part 3: Multi-Format Transcoder - MFX
Is MediaSDK based on this API? What does this document mean for linux developer?
Does it mean that someone can develop something similar to MediaSDK if the offical MediaSDK won't support linux?
0 Kudos
Petter_L_Intel
Employee
1,255 Views
Hi Michael,

Correct, the Mutli-format codec engine (MFX) is accessible to developers. A developer is free to develop their own Linux media applications using the MFX interface.
We are aware of some developers that have already explored and evaluated the MFX engine.

That said, there are several things to keep in mind:
- One of the reasons that the Media SDK is not yet available for Linux is due to the tight coupling with the Linux driver (incl. the MFX engine). The fact is that the current Linux driver has many limitations when it comes to speed and quality of the codecs accessible via MFX. These are being gradually addressed.
- The intent with the Media SDK API is to provide a much simpler cross platform codec interface. MFX on the other hand is a low level interface requiring greater effort by application developer.

Regards,
Petter
0 Kudos
Michael_Chou
Beginner
1,255 Views
Hi Michael,

Correct, the Mutli-format codec engine (MFX) is accessible to developers. A developer is free to develop their own Linux media applications using the MFX interface.
We are aware of some developers that have already explored and evaluated the MFX engine.

That said, there are several things to keep in mind:
- One of the reasons that the Media SDK is not yet available for Linux is due to the tight coupling with the Linux driver (incl. the MFX engine). The fact is that the current Linux driver has many limitations when it comes to speed and quality of the codecs accessible via MFX. These are being gradually addressed.
- The intent with the Media SDK API is to provide a much simpler cross platform codec interface. MFX on the other hand is a low level interface requiring greater effort by application developer.

Regards,
Petter

Hi Petter,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I also want to ask:
1. Is MFX, the low level interface, accessible under Windows?
2. The document I mentioned in the previous post, is it the only document about the MFX engine? or there are other public documents available about the technical details of MFX engine?

0 Kudos
Petter_L_Intel
Employee
1,255 Views
Hi Michael,

See answers below.
1. No
2. Not as far as I know, but feel free to search for it, there may be other developers that has investigated the subject and shared their experience.

Regards,
Petter
0 Kudos
Reply