Hybrid HEVC decode

[alex78]

Hi all,

in our application we are successfully using the full HW accelerared HEVC decoding available on Skylake (works great even for multiple 4K HEVC streams). We are using the Media SDK and are adding the MFX_PLUGINID_HEVCD_HW plugin into the pipeline. I read that on pre-Skylake platforms a hybrid model can be used to decode HEVC.

1. Is the hybrid model also implemented in the driver or are any additional components needed?

2. Do we need to modify our app in any way to support the hybrid model?

3. Is the hybrid model supported on 3.X generation as well (or only on 4.X and 5.X)?

I know there is a SW HEVC plugin available in the Intel Media Server Studio, but this might not be what we want. I think that the hybrid model is a different approach than the SW plugin, right?

I am sure many of you guys are using the hybrid model, thanks in advance for your answers.

Alex

[Anna_B_Intel]

Hi Alex,

1. Yes, there is a hybrid HEVC decoder distributed with Media Server Studio driver that can be run on Broadwell.

2. No.

3. No, MSS 2017 hybrid decoder supports only Broadwell (5th generation).

SW HEVC plugin is a part of Media Server Studio Professional Edition. SW decoder runs on CPU, Hybrid decoder runs on Execution Units (general purpose cores on GPU) and HW implementation works on Fixed Functions (GPU blocks with special functionality).

Best wishes,

Anna  

[alex78]

Hi Anna,

thanks for your reply. In the meantime, I made some tests which show that using the following command with MFX_PLUGINID_HEVCD_HW and a sample H265 file works even on Haswell (4th generation). I have not installed anything else than the latest drivers.

sample_decode h265 -i sample.265 -r -p 33a61c0b4c27454ca8d85dde757c6f8e

So it seems to me that H265 (before Skylake) works in the "hybrid" way not only on Broadwell, but also on Haswell and that no Media Server Studio components are required, just the driver.

You mentioned, however, that there is a "hybrid decoder in MSS 2017". So I am confused now, why should one need it. Note, that I am currently not interested in pure SW HEVC decoding.

Alex