[MIR] gstreamer-vaapi

[Ma Hsiao-chun]

VAAPI stands for Video Acceleration API.
With the increasing number of HD videos and the increasing mobility of computing, users want hardware accelearation.

I've checked the requirements and the package should be fine.

The following bug should be solved before the inclusion I guess:
<< Totem does not use the va-api gstreamer backend >>
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gstreamer-vaapi/+bug/997370

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Michel-Ekimia (michel.ekimia)]

PLease update your title and description with a the purpose of this bug request.

[Ma Hsiao-chun (mahsiaochun)]

Isn't it clear that the purpose is to support Hardware Acceleration?

Please refer to:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GStreamer#Hardware_Acceleration

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Doko, do you have time to look at this one?

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Note that support for the GStreamer 1.0.x API has just been introduced in gstreamer-vaapi 0.5.3.

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

If I've gstreamer1.0-vaapi installed in Ubuntu 14.04 Totem thinks it doesn't have anything to play h.264 with :(
But when I remove gstreamer1.0-vaapi package this video file plays fine in Totem:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gst-libav1.0/+bug/1290368/+attachment/4095344/+files/00004.MTS
This issue was noticed also by Ubuntu developer Mirv (Timo Jyrinki AFAIK), see
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/04/24/%23ubuntu-desktop.txt

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

Must include gstreamer1.0-vaapi package as Recommends in ubuntu-defaults-baltix - at least in 16.04 it works perfectly (CPU usage lowered to ~25% from ~130) with https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gst-libav1.0/+bug/1290368/+attachment/4095344/+files/00004.MTS on Intel HD Graphic (tested with Core i3-2310M)

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

gstreamer1.0-vaapi can prevent thumbnail generation of videos, see bug #1730502

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Desktop team, do you care about this package being in main?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

We would love for gstreamer-vaapi to be in main and I'm sure Will Cooke agrees. The problem is a legal one, I think in dependency 'libva'. We'd have to check with legal.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

What we recommend instead is for anyone who wants to use it install 'ubuntu-restricted-addons', either by ticking the appropriate box during installation or just by installing that package after.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntelQuickSyncVideo

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

It could also be considered from view that currently it's not a terribly reliable plugin.
It may break playback on some hardware, may cause less than smooth playback on some hardware or filetypes & in some admittedly obscure use cases also break playback.
Also the fact that there is no way for users to disable short of removal.

So maybe more suited to explicit installation rather than by default

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

That's probably too harsh. The list of bugs in gstreamer-vaapi itself is quite short:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gstreamer-vaapi

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

There has been not further update for too long, for now we consider it invalid.
Feel free to re-open if there is effort backing it up and motivation to bring it to main.