ffplay does not support hw acceleration, is not documented

[pdknsk]

This is a feature request, but also a minor bug report.

The feature request is to have ffplay support hardware acceleration. Already described in this GSOC 2013 suggestion.

​http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_Summer_of_Code_2013#Hardware_Acceleration_.28hwaccel.29_API_v2

• Integrate hardware acceleration into ffplay
  • Create a video-output (VO) infrastructure to ffplay
  • Port the SDL renderer to the new VO infrastructure
  • Add support for VA-API: VA renderer through vaPutSurface(), add -hwaccel -- option to select "vaapi" renderer
  • Add support for VDPAU (optional): VDPAU renderer through VdpPresentationQueueDisplay()

IMO it is reasonable to expect that ffplay already does so. Certainly ffplay reports that _vaapi or _vdpau is supported. However a search for such an option in the long list of command line options remains fruitless. Maybe this could be documented with a small warning in -h to spare users from trying to figure out why it doesn't work.

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

I wonder how this would be implemented as long as ffplay is limited to sdl.

[Balling]

But it does support at least ffplay -vcodec hevc_cuvid -probesize 7800000 -i LG Chess.ts

That will not be perfect, because it copies stuff too often, but still it is faster than software. ​https://www.reddit.com/r/ffmpeg/comments/anpfz0/make_ffplay_leave_video_on_gpu/

Same about all other cuvid decoders.

[quinkblack]

​https://patchwork.ffmpeg.org/project/ffmpeg/patch/tencent_CC429311685FF3F0136C95C189166EA0E505@qq.com/

fftools/ffplay: add hwaccel decoding support

[MB SOFT]

in 2023 why not to add a Direct3D11 based video render element to ffplay like the d3d11videosink in gstreamer

[Balling]

Replying to MB SOFT:

in 2023 why not to add a Direct3D11 based video render element to ffplay like the d3d11videosink in gstreamer

12 is last version, not 11. What is the point?

[quinkblack]

Use a single renderer to support as many decoders and platforms as possible, that's the point.

We don't do opengl or d3d11 in ffmpeg.

[Balling]

We don't do opengl or d3d11 in ffmpeg

d3d12 api is more nice too. I mean decoder can already use d3d12 since a recent nvidia driver.