How to check if video decode acceleration is active

[maxjrh]

Hello all,

I would like to utilize the video decoding capabilities of the RK3399, but so far I had no success. Many people seem to underestimate how difficult this is and just assume it works without effort.

Here is how to verify whether it works, using mpv, chromium and firefox:
(the pictures are taken on my x86_64 PC)

1. mpv
CTRL + H toggles hardware decoding. If it can't use cuda/vdpau/vaapi then it will just say 'no' all the time.

2. chromium
open the developer panel with F12, open the Media tab

as you can see, VDA is hardware accelerated. Other decoders (Vpx, Dav1d, FFmpeg) are used for the VP9, AV1, and Theora codecs. Neither my Radeon nor the RK3399 have hardware support for these codecs.

3. firefox
run

Code:

MOZ_LOG=PlatformDecoderModule:5 firefox 2>&1| grep VA

note: it says VA-API disabled by platform during startup, but when I actually try to open a video it successfully initializes.

As far as I can tell, no distro on the PineBook Pro has support for hardware video decoding. If somebody can get it to work, I'd love to hear about it.

[Vasant]

Android usually has excellent hardware acceleration. Unfortunately Pin64 and its developers are focused on GNU/Linux desktop.
Even my laptop running Xubutu 18.04 has no acceleration on Firefox but Intel I5 is powerful enough for software decoding.

[jiyong]

Android  usually has excellent hardware acceleration.  Unfortunately  Pin64 and its developers are focused on GNU/Linux desktop.
Even my laptop running  Xubutu 18.04 has no acceleration on Firefox but Intel I5  is powerful enough for software decoding.

Android uses closed source drivers and they don't work with Linux.
The RK3399 has support for VP9, but you need a driver.
My Samsung Chromebook Plus with the RK3399 can play 4K YouTube.
I tested this connected to my 4K TV.

At first I used h264ify plugin with Chromium on the PBP.
That was when Debian was the default install image.
So I think hardware acceleration was working there.

I also have a Star Lite laptop with the Intel N5000.
For me it was easy to get hardware video decoding working with Chromium on Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS.
Although it's based on Ubuntu, I think the newer kernel with Pop! makes all the difference, as it still doesn't work (for me) with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
Now I can play 1080p YouTube without problems.
Perhaps something to consider with your i5 machine.

Open the Pop!_Shop and install Chromium (flatpak) and go to: chrome://flags
Search for: hardware-accelerated video decode
Explicitly enable it and restart Chromium.

https://youtu.be/BkUUGHpDT6s