Open Letter: Why I, Kevin Kofler, am not rerunning for FESCo

[Kevin Kofler]

Sir Gallantmon (ニール・ゴンパ) wrote:
> Wait, I thought libvdpau had a VA-API backend?

AFAIK, no, there's only the opposite (a VDPAU backend for VA-API).

And VA-API also has no implementation in Free drivers other than a proof of 
concept for the intel driver which:
* only supports MPEG 2, no MPEG 4,
* is not a true hardware implementation, but implemented as shaders, and 
thus subject to software patents, which makes it unshippable in Fedora.

> And I thought Fedora included a crippled version of mplayer in its
> repositories?

We actually don't.

> Either way, it is true that VDPAU currently only works with MPEG formats,
> but nothing says that the library can't be modified to support other
> formats, does it?

AFAIK, all of the primitives supported are operations which are used only in 
MPEG (most of them patented). Acceleration for Theora would have to be done 
with a completely different API, and probably exclusively based on shaders 
as no existing graphics card has a dedicated video unit with Theora support. 
So the best way to accelerate Theora is probably to ignore those APIs 
entirely and work directly with OpenGL shaders. Those APIs are focused on 
what GPU video units do in hardware and that's just MPEG.

> If I'm wrong, then shouldn't it be RPM Fusion?

That's my point!

        Kevin Kofler