Intel Quicksync - why limited codecs(h.264, VC1, MPEG2)?

[paperwastage]

As title suggests, why is Intel QuickSync (SB/IB IGP) limited to encoding to H.264/VC-1/MPEG2 formats?

just a thought, b/c a friend told me he had to use CPU power to convert a video to XVID that his media player reads(hooked up to TV), and can't use Quicksync (media player doesnt support the 3 formats above)

 

[Stuka87]

There is no way Intel could ever support every single video codec and wrapper out there. There are far to many of them. So they stuck with the ones that are standardized and common. Its not like they can just "patch" their CPU every time a new version of some codec/wrapper comes out.

 

[paperwastage]

I guess a more accurate question would be:

if intel wanted to, could they support <x> codex on quicksync, or is there some hardware limitation in the design that only makes certain codecs work fine...

@stuk87, gpus do hardware accelerated encoding... does ati/nvidia need to patch a driver when a new codec comes out? if not, is quicksync so different in hardware design that it only supports certain codecs

 

[TheRyuu]

I don't know very much about quicksync but they would likely need to add support in the hardware itself.

Furthermore lets not forget about the quality of the resulting video with the current codecs it does actually support (it's not that great), it's equivalent to about the preset superfast with x264.

And with all of that being said, xvid isn't exactly heavy on the cpu to begin with and should go rather fast regardless.

 

[ViRGE]

QuickSync specifically requires that Intel's video decode block support the format; it doesn't have the means to accept video that is software decoded. Intel doesn't support MPEG-4 ASP hardware decode, hence QuickSync cannot work on such video.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

That's the tradeoff with fixed-function hardware, it does one thing extremely well but only that one thing.

 

[cantholdanymore]

I think the main target of quicksync was people transcoding for their mobile devices or internet, so they probably chose the most popular formats for that.