Intel Media SDK 2016 R2 - what's new?

A new version of a set of tools for developing software for encoding and playing media content Intel Media SDK 2016 was released . The update contains a number of significant changes:

• Added support for seventh generation Intel Core processors (Kabylake);
• Improved Media RAW Accelerator performance for flexibility and performance;
• Added new features when encoding AVC / H.264 for video conferencing and cloud gaming services;
• Added new VPP filters and improved existing ones;
• A new version of the API with improvements in memory management and platform request functionality has been introduced;
• Implemented Windows Redstone Preview support.

Under cat - a brief overview of the current functionality of Intel Media SDK 2016.

Full hardware acceleration for HEVC and VP9.

• Support 10-bit HEVC encoder and decoder
• Support for 8-bit and 10-bit VP9 decoder

AVC Encoder : Added Slice Size restrictions and reporting functionality to ensure the low latency required when using the RTP protocol. Developers can use this functionality to better match the video stream with the bandwidth of the communication channel.

Media RAW Accelerator: In order to improve performance, Media RAW Accelerator is distributed with a graphics driver, so it does not need to be included in the application now. Added support for 16-bit ARGB input, to which Gamma Correction, Chroma Aberration, 3DLUT and Les Geometry Correction filters can be applied. Now developers in their applications can easily apply filters to the image with the applied debayer or configure their own post-processing blocks by adding them to the processing pipeline, as shown in the figure.



VPP extensions: Developers can use the bt.601 or bt.709 color conversion matrices, videos of various ranges with the Videosignal Info function. With the Scaler & Format Converter (SFC) pipeline, available starting with the sixth generation of Intel Core (Skylake) processors, new scaling modes can be used when the workload is removed from the rendering tool during the Media SDK operation and is no longer locked. Thus, the developer can more accurately control the execution units of the GPU for other loads during processing.

Improvements for easier API work: API request feature added platform request; using the new API, the application can now determine the hardware platform on which it runs. To improve memory performance, its allocation has been optimized for 3D and OpenCL configurations.