Ubuntu – How to correctly enable/test VA-API on Intel Sandy Bridge

intel graphicsvaapi

I would like to know which package I have to install and how to test that is working fine?

I know there are many question similar but no one is complete and clear to me

Best Answer

libva-intel-vaapi-driver Install libva-intel-vaapi-driver vainfo Install vainfo

Then run vainfo to check if you see the entry points for some profiles:

[...]
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
    VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
    [...]

For all GStreamer-based video players, this package should be sufficient: gstreamer0.10-vaapi Install gstreamer0.10-vaapi. If I'm correct most standard video players like Totem are GStreamer based.

VLC is a different story, but it's being built with the --enable-libva build flag in Ubuntu (as shown by the apt-get source vlc). This means it should just work by enabling it in the configuration:

enter image description here

Or, manually, on the command line:

vlc --ffmpeg-hw -v
[...]
libva: VA-API version 0.32.0
[0x7feeecc02a28] avcodec decoder: Using VA API version 0.32 for hardware decoding.
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