On 03/02/2020 07:24 AM, Moritz Barsnick wrote:
On Mon, Mar 02, 2020 at 04:57:23 -0500, Mark Filipak wrote:
I used to work at Intel as a product line architect. I sat on 3
divisional planning councils, including graphics processors, and
co-chaired one.
[OT, sorry]
OT, eh? Just like Congressional testimony.
BTW, I have worked as Intel Corp. as well, incidentally both in
graphics processors ("Petascale Development" ;-)) and in FPGA
technology. Both in the same project, and before I was all too avid in
video technology.
Oh goodie! Hey, Brother, when did you work at Intel? I'll bet in the
early 00s. I was at San Tomas 4. I see from streetview that the building
isn't even there any more. ;-(
I lived in Felton. $-)
I outlined what appeared to me to be the direction of open source video
development: That what is developed using open source code is migrated
to FPGAs and hence to GPUs. I asked if I have it right (correct).
I'd like to pitch in to what Carl Eugen doubted: You hardly want to
"convert" software to hardware...
Agreed; totally. You must not have read the whole thread as I mentioned
mimicking procedural code via finite state machines (FSMs). As you note
below, such things as MMX & SSE are CPU opcode extensions that, though
optimized for graphics, are still code and don't come close to the speed
of FSMs. Most FPGAs operate as peripherals that require OS drivers,
while some (few) FPGAs are populated entirely by FSMs that are fed (and
operate directly on) streams.
...Simplified (not sure about all the
terms): In software, execution is linear, procedular, while in
hardware, everything is parallel by design (while data flow again can
be "linear"). You wouldn't want to give up this advantage of hardware
over software. You want to mix the best of both worlds.
(BTW, for those who aren't aware: hardware, such as chips, ASICs, and
also FGPA content, is described in something you could call software.
But it's not procedural in the same way.)
What hardware would do, is to build accelerated "calculators" for
certain operations. This might be a complete codec (raw in, encoded
out, like GPUs do, and probably like Amazon AWS does), or just bits of
hardware capable of computations which standard CPU components aren't
capable of at the same speed. Think MMX, SSE, but specialized for
graphics or e.g. vector accelerations. Either of these would be hooked
into a software flow, as ffmpeg does with hardware ("GPU") encoding.
Many smaller video related operations could already be shifted to GPU
hardware, but I believe ffmpeg's GPU accelerations don't take advantage
of this. Perhaps its OpenCL and OpenGL uses do, but I don't believe
there are many. (Or is there any ffmpeg software encoder assisted by
hardware, except for the MMX/SSE/AVX type CPU accelerations?)
I haven't used them, but I see from posts to this list that some folks
are applying CUDA-specific filters.
Of course, the ffmpeg crew works to exploit the capabilities that are
thereby created. This is all to be celebrated. What is it that you
object to? What in what I wrote is wrong or that industry chip providers
would find offensive?
If someone took the ffmpeg sources to "reimplement" them in hardware,
selling that service without open-sourcing their efforts. I believe
that is what is meant.
That is not what I meant. What I'm getting at is that it appears that
the latest streaming protocols & methods are being developed via ffmpeg,
then being tested-debugged-retested-etc. via ffmpeg users, then
implemented in FPGAs by software-in-silicon vendors like NGCodec,
MainConcept, Beamr, etc., and finally cast into FSMs in GPUs. Good for
all: Open source developers get support & methods to 'talk' to chips and
GPU makers get well developed, proven protocols & methods.
Sorry if I drifted off, used some incorrect terms, or have a
misunderstanding of this. It's just that my understanding of "FPGA
based" seems to be different than yours.
Well, I'm very familiar with FPGAs and have done many FPGA designs.
_______________________________________________
ffmpeg-user mailing list
ffmpeg-user@ffmpeg.org
https://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-user
To unsubscribe, visit link above, or email
ffmpeg-user-requ...@ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".
