Difference between VA-API and QuickSync?

[Beebo 4]

With the new Emby server release, I see that there are two options for each hardware encoder/decoder now: the existing VA-API one and a new QuickSync one.

My Emby Server runs directly in Debian on a Pentium Gold G5420, identified as Coffee Lake (gen9.5).

So what's the difference? Which one is preferred, and why? (Technical details welcome.) Is this an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" case or a "try it and see what works better/faster" deal?

TIA

 

[Happy2Play 8240]

This may help a little.

Emby Hardware Acceleration on Linux : Emby

[mike3821 61]

Looking at this, neither support h.265 encoding.

Am I right to think it encodes when somebody is wat Hong and showing transcoding if the source is h.265?

[Beebo 4]

If it's only encoding h.265 that's lacking on your system (but it can decode h.265, as well as transcode to h.264), then you'll be fine watching h.265 content.

Encoding to h.265 makes more sense if you want to transcode files offline (not while watching them) to save disk space.

 

[horstepipe 356]

so is there no general recommendation whether to choose vaapi or intel quick sync (Intel I7-4770)?

[Luke 37003]

There is no one size fits all answer, that's why you need to try them both and see what works better on your machine with the media that you play.

[softworkz 3325]

5 hours ago, horstepipe said:

so is there no general recommendation whether to choose vaapi or intel quick sync (Intel I7-4770)?

It's a Gen 4 CPU. IIRC it's too old for QuickSync.

[horstepipe 356]

11 hours ago, softworkz said:

It's a Gen 4 CPU. IIRC it's too old for QuickSync.

On their page it shows it is able to

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/de/de/ark/products/75122/intel-core-i7-4770-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-90-ghz.html

[softworkz 3325]

10 hours ago, horstepipe said:

On their page it shows it is able to

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/de/de/ark/products/75122/intel-core-i7-4770-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-90-ghz.html

Officially, QuickSync is Intel's marketing name for video hw acceleration capabilities.

At the driver/software side, there exists VAAPI (only Linux) and Intel Media SDK (Linux and Windows) to leverage the CPUGPU's "QuickSync" video acceleration capabilities.

At the side of ffmpeg, the term VAAPI refers to VAAPI and QuickSync refers to Intel Media SDK.

At Emby, we are using the same terminology as ffmpeg. I know it can be confusing...

[Happy2Play 8240]

11 hours ago, horstepipe said:

On their page it shows it is able to

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/de/de/ark/products/75122/intel-core-i7-4770-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-90-ghz.html

Yes but that Haswell processor is limited.

Intel Quick Sync Video - Wikipedia

 

[horstepipe 356]

Okay understood. In fact I‘m happy with vaapi, just needing it for one client anyway.

[softworkz 3325]

Here's the right table to look at: https://github.com/Intel-Media-SDK/MediaSDK#media-sdk-support-matrix

No support for Haswell in IMSDK => no "QuickSync" support in ffmpeg and Emby

But you can use the processor's (limited set of) QuickSync capabilities through VAAPI on Linux.

[horstepipe 356]

On 9/9/2021 at 8:43 PM, softworkz said:

Here's the right table to look at: https://github.com/Intel-Media-SDK/MediaSDK#media-sdk-support-matrix

No support for Haswell in IMSDK => no "QuickSync" support in ffmpeg and Emby

But you can use the processor's (limited set of) QuickSync capabilities through VAAPI on Linux.

hey

I'm sorry but I didn't get where to look at the tables in your referenced github page. Could you please tell me whether the i7-7700 would do Quicksync? And - if you can - would you mind give me some idea how much I'd prefer from quick sync vs vaapi?

[softworkz 3325]

On 1/2/2022 at 4:02 PM, horstepipe said:

I'm sorry but I didn't get where to look at the tables in your referenced github page

The table that lists Broadwell and Skylake but doesn't include Haswell - which is what I wanted to point out, sorry for the confusion.

On 1/2/2022 at 4:02 PM, horstepipe said:

Could you please tell me whether the i7-7700 would do Quicksync?

This is Gen7/KabyLake and it will work well with both.

On 1/2/2022 at 4:02 PM, horstepipe said:

And - if you can - would you mind give me some idea how much I'd prefer from quick sync vs vaapi?

This can be a bit confusing because QuickSync is Intel's marketing term for video acceleration.

There are two way to access that technology: (1) VAAPI (2) and Intel Media SDK (=MSDK, =libmfx), which is - in case of Linux - built on top of VAAPI.

In decoding, both are equal, they are different in processing (VPP) and encoding. In case of encoding, (2) provides better performance, better quality a much wider range of features and parameters.

To make the confusion complete: at the side of ffmpeg (1) is called VAAPI and (2) is called QuickSync and that's also how Emby is naming them.