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Kaby Lake Support for Media Server Studio

MSaue
Beginner
2,282 Views

I'm wondering if Kaby Lake cpu's are supported by the latest release of the Media Server Studio for Linux 2017R2. It does not appear to be listed in the supported CPU's in the manual, but I just wanted to check if this is indeed true. If it will not work on Kaby lake, is there any estimate of when this support will be added?

Thanks.

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Mark_B_Intel1
Employee
2,286 Views

Dear customers, this is Mark Buxton, the engineering director of the Intel® Media SDK and the Intel® Media Server Studio. I want to thank you for your feedback as well as your criticisms.

As Mark Liu noted in the thread above, there is no support for the Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 processor family in the Intel® Media Server Studio for Linux or Windows.  Intel® Media Server Studio is our product for data center and cloud developers https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-media-server-studio

The primary reasons we are not providing support for Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 is because:

  • Intel® Xeon® E3-1500 v5 (featuring Intel® Iris Pro graphics) delivers better performance for intensive media or graphics workloads
  • Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 does not deliver significant visual quality improvements

Therefore, we recommend developers building graphics or media-intensive server applications stay with Intel® Xeon® E3 v5.

Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 delivers the right mix of performance and capabilities for markets including entry workstation and entry server.

We continue development work for Intel® Media Server Studio for improved performance and video quality. 

Developers targeting Windows and 7th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors for client and desktop applications can use the latest Intel® Media SDK for Windows: https://software.intel.com/en-us/media-sdk . Another option for Linux developers is to leverage VA API from the Intel open source Linux drivers on 01.org: https://01.org/linuxgraphics.

We appreciate your feedback and are carefully considering your input for planning our upcoming software releases.  Please continue to share your feature requirements either via this forum or PM to Mark Liu.   

View solution in original post

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34 Replies
ViCue_S_
New Contributor I
900 Views

Liu, Yan (Intel) wrote:

 for the people plan to use HEVC encoder, we suggested to use the software solution from Beamr and Ittiam.

Dear Yan, we are here to get low-power hardware accelerated HEVC encoder which was in Skylake and shall to be present in Kabylake. It is odd to hear a “recommendation” to use a software solution from third party

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ViCue_S_
New Contributor I
900 Views

Vasiliy P. wrote:

Quote:

Liu, Yan wrote:

 

I have confirmed the MSS 2017R3 will not support Kabylake. The reason is the Media Server Studio is a server product, it is not necessary to support the Kabelake—a desktop processor.

 

This phrase is very strange for me, because Haswell, Skylake are also desktop processors, not server, but fully support by MSS and I successfully use it. Also I want to use Media SDK with Kaby Lake processor i7 7700k. Or I don't understand something?....

These statements are not quite precise. Haswell, Skylake and Kabylake are codenames for Intel’s chip architecture. In fact, they are SoCs where is CPU cores, gfx, media accelerators and memory controller etc on the same die.

Kabylake IS NOT a “processor”, where is Core i7-7700K IS processor SKU. Intel defines several dozens SKUs for each generation architecture, targeting different segments (server, desktop, mobile, embedded) and model usages (consumer, Media Server, gaming, HPC etc). Naming a CPU as “server product” only means some special design/adjustment of basic architecture for specific market requirements. But essentially it may have similar features set as another consumer grade CPU.

Anyone MAY use consumer grade CPU for Server usage models IF it fits your needs by features (price etc) and software stack is on place to support it. In this case, you assume own risk that CPU to be used as not supposed by manufacturer, and it may start throttling way ahead than guaranteed. While manufacturer guaranteed 3 years for consumer use – lazy email checks and infrequent web surfing, 24/7 load will burn it out in less than a year.

As I understood Yan-Mark Liu, he and his management made a decision to not support Server segment CPUs (like Xeon E3 -12xx v6, 15xx v6) with Media Server Studio because blabla (they got a reason).

But Media SDK itself is must have for any Windows laptop, thousand app use it as API for video playback and video editing/transcoding. Millions of 7th gen laptops CPUs sold with Media SDK+gfx driver preinstalled with every Win10 so my favorite apps work fine.

For Windows developers, Here is 7th gen mentioned as supported by (Version 7.0.0.358) MediaSDK 2016 R2 on Windows https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/mediasdk_release_notes.pdf

“Hardware acceleration is available through hardware implementations of the Media SDK Library coming with Intel® IrisTM and HD Graphics Driver for Microsoft* Windows* 7/8.1/10 on platforms with: …7 th Generation Intel® CoreTM processors…

But Linux support is not in plan as Yan said and this is the concern of the topic.

So, Kabylake arch SKUs on the market. And the choice is next:

  1. Core i-3/5/7 7xxx – go ahead to use accelerators on Windows
  2. Xeon E3 12xx, 15xx v6. No way - it lacks MSS software stack to be used for video acceleration. That means stay with v5! Until Mark and BK change the mind to make it supported.
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MSchm21
Valued Contributor I
900 Views

Yes it's true there is Kabylake support for Media SDK. However it is obvious that Intel isn't interested in further updates because there is no Media SDK 2017 for Windows and we are approaching the second half of 2017. The last is 1 year old.

Furthermore Intels answer is inconsistent because Kabylake and Skylake offers the same media features, only that Kabylake adds support for 10 Bit HEVC. If Kabylake doesn't satisfy the customer needs then Skylake doesn't satisfy as well.

 

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Mark_B_Intel1
Employee
2,287 Views

Dear customers, this is Mark Buxton, the engineering director of the Intel® Media SDK and the Intel® Media Server Studio. I want to thank you for your feedback as well as your criticisms.

As Mark Liu noted in the thread above, there is no support for the Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 processor family in the Intel® Media Server Studio for Linux or Windows.  Intel® Media Server Studio is our product for data center and cloud developers https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-media-server-studio

The primary reasons we are not providing support for Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 is because:

  • Intel® Xeon® E3-1500 v5 (featuring Intel® Iris Pro graphics) delivers better performance for intensive media or graphics workloads
  • Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 does not deliver significant visual quality improvements

Therefore, we recommend developers building graphics or media-intensive server applications stay with Intel® Xeon® E3 v5.

Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v6 delivers the right mix of performance and capabilities for markets including entry workstation and entry server.

We continue development work for Intel® Media Server Studio for improved performance and video quality. 

Developers targeting Windows and 7th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors for client and desktop applications can use the latest Intel® Media SDK for Windows: https://software.intel.com/en-us/media-sdk . Another option for Linux developers is to leverage VA API from the Intel open source Linux drivers on 01.org: https://01.org/linuxgraphics.

We appreciate your feedback and are carefully considering your input for planning our upcoming software releases.  Please continue to share your feature requirements either via this forum or PM to Mark Liu.   

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Mark_L_Intel1
Moderator
900 Views

Thanks Mark for the important message and I agree that all the customer feedback, both positive and negative are welcomed. This was also my motivation in my first post. I will summarize them and send to our planning.

I also have a sticky topic for our official message on KabyLake support, please go to the following page to view it:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-media-sdk/topic/735307

Thanks ViCue for your detailed comment. On your question about low power, we have our Apollo Lake product which has the same GPU architecture and feature as Sky Lake and we have a new product Media SDK for Embedded Linux for our IoT solutions. Please go to the following site for the detailed Apollo Lake info:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/products/apollo-lake/overview.html

Again, any feedback is welcomed and we will take them to our future product.

Mark(Yan) Liu

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david123456
Beginner
900 Views
Hi Mark, Embedded only supports n3350, n4200 and e39xx. Many popular Apollo chips as n3450 j3455 j4205 joule5700,5500 are not availble. Best Regards David
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Mark_L_Intel1
Moderator
900 Views

Thanks David,

This is the valuable feedback, I knew some customers have the request for n3450. Do you have any specific reasons for choosing the chips that are not listed?

I checked Joule modules, they don't have the Quick Sync Video support, so I think they should not be included.

Mark

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david123456
Beginner
900 Views

Hi Mark,

Many mini PCs such as Voyo VMAC V1 and Beelink AP34 use N3450.

ASROCK J3455-itx is a popular matherboard.

Joule supports 4K hardware encode and use intel Gen9LP graphics engine. How to use the codec function of joule?

BTW, what's the the define of item "embedded"? Why does N3350 belong to embedded, but n3450 does not?

Best Regards,

David

 

 

 

 

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Mark_L_Intel1
Moderator
900 Views

Very good questions! Thanks so much, this is a valuable feedback.

Here is the Apollo Lake family processors: https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/80644/Apollo-Lake, from this page, we have the categories of desktop/embedded/mobile, this should be the official definition of the embedded processor. For all Intel® processors, it has the same categories at the beginning of the ARK processors page.

The embedded processors means they should be supported by our Internet of Thing Group, this is why you can find the list in ARK is the same as the list in IoTG product page; although the Media SDK for Embedded Linux might support all the Apollo Lake processors since they have the same GPU hardware.

I have a new sticky topic for the complete support list of Apollo Lake at https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-media-sdk/topic/735368, please post your feedback on that topic. I will also confirm the information about Joule™ and I will publish on that topic soon.

Mark Liu

 

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david123456
Beginner
900 Views
Hi Mark, Thanks for your quick and clear answers. Waiting Yocto Project* BSP for all apollo chips and more infor about joule. Best Regards, David
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Mark_L_Intel1
Moderator
900 Views

Hi David,

I have update all the questions include Joule, please go to the sticky topic link to find it.

There are actually 2 questions about Media SDK and Apollo Lake,

1. Should APL has a BSP for the processor?

2. Should MSDK support that processor?

The sticky topic answered the second question while the IoTG product page answered the first one.

Mark

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Jun_Z_Intel1
Employee
900 Views

I think the Intel OTC team have enabled the Kabylake support (https://github.com/01org/intel-vaapi-driver), and I think FFmpeg/Libav VAAPI hwaccel can work with the OTC i965 driver in Kakylake. (I didn't check gstreamer-vaapi).

In the link https://wiki.libav.org/Hardware/vaapi has more detail information for FFmpeg/Libav VAAPI.  And from HW Spec view, Kabylake have supported the 10 bits HEVC/VP9 decode, 10bit HEVC encode, 8 bits VP9 encode, but Skylake can't support them.

 

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lee__johnnylee
Beginner
900 Views

Liu, Mark (Intel) wrote:

Very good questions! Thanks so much, this is a valuable feedback.

Here is the Apollo Lake family processors: https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/80644/Apollo-Lake, from this page, we have the categories of desktop/embedded/mobile, this should be the official definition of the embedded processor. For all Intel® processors, it has the same categories at the beginning of the ARK processors page.

The embedded processors means they should be supported by our Internet of Thing Group, this is why you can find the list in ARK is the same as the list in IoTG product page; although the Media SDK for Embedded Linux might support all the Apollo Lake processors since they have the same GPU hardware.

I have a new sticky topic for the complete support list of Apollo Lake at https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-media-sdk/topic/735368, please post your feedback on that topic. I will also confirm the information about Joule™ and I will publish on that topic soon.

Mark Liu

 

Dear Mark, I want to check is MSS support apollo lake j3455 or not ? when I use j3455 and MSS 2017R3,vainfo can't get drivername as below:

libva info: va_getDriverName() returns -2

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lopatka__piotr
Beginner
900 Views

Jun Z. (Intel) wrote:

I think the Intel OTC team have enabled the Kabylake support (https://github.com/01org/intel-vaapi-driver), and I think FFmpeg/Libav VAAPI hwaccel can work with the OTC i965 driver in Kakylake. (I didn't check gstreamer-vaapi).

In the link https://wiki.libav.org/Hardware/vaapi has more detail information for FFmpeg/Libav VAAPI.  And from HW Spec view, Kabylake have supported the 10 bits HEVC/VP9 decode, 10bit HEVC encode, 8 bits VP9 encode, but Skylake can't support them.

 

Hello,

FFMPEG does support Intel Kabylake hardware through VAAPI driver. Unfortunately the number of available control knobs is very limited on VAAPI (only "-q") comparing to the one available through the SDK.

Best regards,

Piotr

 

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