<story><title>Khronos Releases AV1 Decode in Vulkan Video with SDK Support for H.264/H.265</title><url>https://www.khronos.org/blog/khronos-releases-vulkan-video-av1-decode-extension-vulkan-sdk-now-supports-h.264-h.265-encode</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cm2187</author><text>How useful are hardware decoders? My understanding is that they are not necessarily faster than software decoders (in my experience it is the opposite), so the only benefit I can see is less CPU consumption. I see the benefit when you run on a battery (laptop &amp;#x2F; smartphone) but on a desktop or server, unless you critically need the CPU at that time, I am not sure how useful it is.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>FirmwareBurner</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;I see the benefit when you run on a battery (laptop &amp;#x2F; smartphone) but on a desktop or server, unless you critically need the CPU at that time, I am not sure how useful it is.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is. Very useful. The vast majority of people use laptops now, not desktop computers with 120mm tower coolers anymore, and if you want to switch to Linux then not having video decode nuke your battery life and turn your tiny fans into a Pratt &amp;amp; Whitney, then this is another welcome change to closing the gap to Windows.&lt;p&gt;People, especially on the Linux side, need to stop viewing the world as if everyone still has desktop towers PCs tucked under their desks while disregarding the software issues and deficiencies that  only plague laptops, which are the majority of the marketshare and have vastly different constrains than desktops.</text></comment>
<story><title>Khronos Releases AV1 Decode in Vulkan Video with SDK Support for H.264/H.265</title><url>https://www.khronos.org/blog/khronos-releases-vulkan-video-av1-decode-extension-vulkan-sdk-now-supports-h.264-h.265-encode</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cm2187</author><text>How useful are hardware decoders? My understanding is that they are not necessarily faster than software decoders (in my experience it is the opposite), so the only benefit I can see is less CPU consumption. I see the benefit when you run on a battery (laptop &amp;#x2F; smartphone) but on a desktop or server, unless you critically need the CPU at that time, I am not sure how useful it is.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ddalex</author><text>I can tell you from my Chromebook and Macbook experience, HW decoders and encoders are the difference between a productive remote video meetup with good collaboration, and a frustrating lagged glitchy suttering meet with no work done, if CPU only.</text></comment>