AMD releases open-source UVD support

AMD releases open-source driver support for the radeon series video UVD video decoding unit.

Because the open-source drive support of UVD hardware decoding units may involve digital rights management (DRM) in other systems, the progress has been so slow that most people think it is impossible. During this period, amd released an xvba interface that allows access to UVD hardware decoding units using a catalyst closed-source driver. However, this xvba is used by only a few programs (fluendo codec pack and xmbc), with low acceptance.

Until today, AMD has developed an open-source driver for UVD hardware decoding units:

• Supports uvd2 in radeon 4000 and later video cards and subsequent hardware decoding units. UVD in radeon 2000 and UVD + in radeon 3000 can also be used, but limited support.
• H.264, VC-1 and MPEG2/4 decoding will be completed by the UVD unit, significantly reducing the CPU share.
• UVD hardware decoding unit will be accessed through the most widely used vdpau interface, which means that the current media player supporting the vdpau interface can directly use the UVD hardware decoding unit.
• This support covers kernel, DRM, And mesa changes and will be merged into kernel 3.10 and mesa 9.1/10.0.

Currently, the uvd3 support patch in the radeon 7000 Open-Source graphics card driver radeonsi has been released, and more UVD support will be released in succession. This means that in the second half of this year, amd users are likely to receive out-of-the-box open-source HD video hardware decoding support.