Overview: Media hardware acceleration

Media hardware acceleration uses supported device engines and software interfaces to perform parts of a playback or conversion pipeline.

A GPU name does not describe the entire media path. Decoding, filtering and encoding can use different engines, and the software must reach those engines through a compatible interface with suitable picture formats.

The building-block and interface topics establish those relationships. Generation pages explain how capabilities differ, while pipeline topics show why transfers, synchronization or another stage can limit the benefit. For Emby, the useful question is which parts of this particular operation use hardware and what still happens elsewhere.

• What hardware acceleration does for media
  Media hardware acceleration assigns supported decoding, picture processing or encoding work to specialized device paths within a larger playback or conversion pipeline.

• Processing building blocks
  Hardware media processing combines engines and programmable operations within a decode, filter and encode sequence.

• Hardware decoding and software decoding
  Hardware and software video decoding reconstruct encoded pictures through different execution paths while preserving the stream’s configuration, reference and presentation requirements.

• Hardware encoding and software encoding
  Hardware and software video encoders create a new compressed representation using different execution paths and supported configuration, rate-control and coding-tool choices.

• Media engines and acceleration interfaces
  Media interfaces connect an application's operations with device capabilities and supported picture representations.

• Media-engine generations
  Media-engine generations describe capability changes that must be read at the level of codec, operation and stream properties.

• Hardware pipelines and their limits
  Hardware pipeline behavior depends on picture transfers, synchronization, shared resources and the stages actually accelerated.