Video Core Next is AMD's brand for its dedicated video encoding and decoding hardware core. It is a family of hardware accelerator designs for encoding and decoding video, and is built into AMD's GPUs and APUs since AMD Raven Ridge, released January 2018.

Background

Video Core Next is AMD's successor to both the Unified Video Decoder and Video Coding Engine designs,[1] which are hardware accelerators for video decoding and encoding, respectively. It can be used to decode, encode and transcode ("sync") video streams, for example, a DVD or Blu-ray Disc to a format appropriate to, for example, a smartphone. Unlike video encoding on a CPU or a general-purpose GPU, Video Core Next is a dedicated hardware core on the processor die. This application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) allows for more power-efficient video processing.[2][3]

Feature set

All versions of VCN supports: MPEG-2 Decode, MPEG-4 Decode, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Encode/Decode, HEVC (H.265) Encode/Decode, and VP9 Decode. 10-bit color in the P010 format is supported. VCN 1.0 supports up to 4K resolution. VCN 2.0 and beyond supports up to 8K.[4] Support for H.264 and H.265 Encode methods differ among generations (see below). VC-1 Decode is supported until VCN 3.0.33.[4]

VCN 2.0 is implemented with Navi products and the Renoir APU. The feature set remains the same as VCN 1.0.[4]

VCN 3.0 is implemented with Navi 2 products.[5] VCN 3.0 implements H.264 B-frames, which was present in Video Coding Engine 2.0 but taken out with VCE 3.0.[6]

VCN 4.0 adds AV1 encode.[7] H.264 quality is higher with VCN 4.0 (as part of RDNA 3) compared to previous generations, but still lags behind Intel and Nvidia hardware codecs.[8]

There is no support for encoding or decoding in YUV422 and YUV444 in H.264 and H.265.

Video Core Next Video decoding/encoding support[4]
VCN
Generation		 GPU code name H.262
(MPEG-2)		 H.264
(MPEG-4 AVC)		 H.265
(HEVC)		 VC-1/WMV 9 VP9 AV1 JPEG
Decode Encode Decode Encode Decode Decode Decode Encode Decode Decode
B-frame[lower-alpha 1] Pre-analysis[lower-alpha 2] Resolution， color depth Chroma Resolution,

color depth
VCN 1.0 Raven, Picasso Yes No  ? To be filled Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
VCN 2.0 Navi 1x Yes[11]
VCN 2.2 Renoir, Lucienne, Cezanne, Barcelo
VCN 2.5 Arcturus
VCN 2.6 Aldebaran[12]
VCN 3.0[13] Navi 21, Navi 22, Navi 23 Yes Yes
VCN 3.0.33 Navi 24 No No No
VCN 3.1.0 Van Gogh[14] Yes Yes Yes
VCN 3.1.1 Rembrandt,[15] Mendocino No No
VCN 3.1.2[16] Raphael, Dragon Range
VCN 4.0[17][18] Navi 3x, Phoenix Yes

Quality

AMD VCN has lower overall quality (VMAF) compared to offerings from Intel and Nvidia. B-frame narrows the gap, but does not eliminate it.[8] With pre-analysis enabled too, the gap is almost closed.[9]

Despite a lack of B-frame support, H.265 provides better quality (VMAF) and near-identical speed for the same bitrate compared to H.264 on VCN 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0.[19]

See also

Video hardware technologies

Nvidia

AMD

Intel

Qualcomm

References

  1. ↑ B-frames allow for higher-quality I and P frame to be used, improving the overall video quality in high-motion sections. There is no B-frame support for H.265 at any version.[6]
  2. ↑ Pre-analysis improves quality in high motion scenes at the cost of latency.[9][10] This pass works in both H.264 and H.265.
  1. ↑ Larabel, Michael (17 November 2017). "Radeon VCN Encode Support Lands In Mesa 17.4 Git". Phoronix. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
  2. ↑ "Intel's Second-Gen Core CPUs: The Sandy Bridge Review - Sandy Bridge's Secret Weapon: Quick Sync". Tom's Hardware. 3 January 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-30.
  3. ↑ "The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested". AnandTech. Retrieved 2014-04-05.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "RadeonFeature". www.x.org.
  5. ↑ "AMD Lands VCN 3.0 Video Encode Support For Navi 2 / Sienna Cichlid - Phoronix". Phoronix. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  6. 1 2 Griffith, Chris (5 July 2022). "AMD Re-introduces the B-frame!". Code Calamity.
  7. ↑ Shilov, Anton (4 May 2022). "First Details About AMD's Next Generation Video Engine Revealed". Tom's Hardware.
  8. 1 2 "Tested: With RDNA 3, AMD Radeon is finally useful for content creators". PCWorld.
  9. 1 2 Griffith, Chris (2022-08-11). "AMD improves video encoding yet again! This time with Pre-Analysis". Code Calamity. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
  10. ↑ "[Request]: · Issue #318 · GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/AMF". GitHub. – See explanation by rhutsAMD.
  11. ↑ "AMF/amf/doc/AMF_Video_PreAnalysis_API.md at 2ca261f7f08ed762f115db5af8e5d288a9b2eaff · GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/AMF". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-01-11. The AMF PA feature is supported by Radeon RX 5000 Series or newer GPUs as well as Ryzen 2000 U/H series or newer APUs.
  12. ↑ Larabel, Michael (February 24, 2021). "AMD Radeon "Aldebaran" GPU Support Published For Next-Gen CDNA". Phoronix. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  13. ↑ Larabel, Michael (September 15, 2020). "AMD Radeon Navi 2 / VCN 3.0 Supports AV1 Video Decoding - Phoronix". Phoronix. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
  14. ↑ Alcorn, Paul (September 26, 2020). "AMD's Van Gogh Chips to Have DDR5, Navi 2 Graphics". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
  15. ↑ Tyson, Mark (September 28, 2020). "AMD Radeon RX 6000 GPU specs spotted in MacOS beta code". HEXUS. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
  16. ↑ Larabel, Michael (February 26, 2022). "More AMD Radeon Driver Improvements Lined Up For Linux 5.18". Phoronix. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
  17. ↑ Larabel, Michael (May 2, 2022). "AMD Posts Linux Driver Patches For New "VCN 4.0" IP Block". Phoronix. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  18. ↑ Shilov, Anton (May 4, 2022). "First Details About AMD's Next Generation Video Engine Revealed". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
  19. ↑ Walton, Jarred (10 March 2023). "Video Encoding Tested: AMD GPUs Still Lag Behind Nvidia, Intel (Updated)". Tom's Hardware.
  • AMF, AMD's software API for VCN and earlier media functions. Release notes indicates feature additions without mentioning hardware versions.
  • VCEEnc, a command-line program exposing most configurable options from AMF. Allows HDR10+ with VCN H.265.
  • FastFlix, a graphical frontend for VCEEnc and other encoders.
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