How to enable VDPAU on GStreamer?

Question

I'm currently experiencing a bit of lag on 720 HD videos. I am hoping VDPAU will help. How do I enable it on either GStreamer-based video players?

Answer 1

VDPAU is enable by default on the official nVidia binaries. If your card supports VDPAU you just need to install them and use a player that supports VDPAU.

Other then that video hardware acceleration should be implemented via libva if the vdpau-va-driver is installed.

sudo apt-get install libva1 vdpau-va-driver vainfo

Gstreamer should take care of the rest or if you are going to use a player like vlc you should have an option that enables that in the player it self.

To see if your card is supported run the command vainfo.

If you get an output like this

libva: libva version 0.32.0
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/vboxvideo_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

you card has no hardware acceleration.

If on the other hand you get something like this

libva: libva version 0.32.0
     Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
     libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
     libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_drv_video.so
     libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
     vainfo: VA API version: 0.32
     vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems XvBA backend for VA-API - 0.7.8
     vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
     VAProfileH264High               :  VAEntrypointVLD
     VAProfileVC1Advanced            :  VAEntrypointVLD

your hardware supports video acceleration and its enabled.