[nekrosoft13]

any updates on HEVC hardware acceleration?

I believe its possible with newer nVidia cards and even some codec packs (http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html) can do it now.

notable updates (current):
- update LAV filters 63.16
- update Icaros 227 beta 3
- update x264 vfw interface 2491
- update MediaInfo DLL 771
- support Dolby Atmos audio
- Allow HEVC hardware acceleration
- improved subtitle support

[rd1979]

LAV Filters is doing so via a very experimental manner that's also only compatible with a limited set of cards.
This is something you shouldn't expect to ever be added, not this implementation anyway.
When GPUs can do 'normal' decoding, and ffmpeg supports it, then we'll talk.

[nekrosoft13]

all GPUs will never be able to do it, does that mean it will never be added?

[Ned Scott]

From what I've been told, there are two ways main ways a GPU helps decode video. One is being able to fully decode it in hardware, the other is partial decoding support where only certain calculations are hardware accelerated. The way things are now, XBMC/Kodi needs full hardware video decoding.

From a quick google search, it sounds like Nvidia has not yet released a GPU that offers full hardware decoding for H.265, but plans to have those cards released in 2015. When that happens, then things will get interesting.

[RockerC]

Hardware accelerated decoding of HEVC/H.265 videos on the PC-platform (Intel/AMD x86-64 computers) is not ready for prime-time yet, not for any operating-system.

We just have to wait for the hardware manufacturers to release updated drivers, libraries, and such for the actual hardware that really do support it in hardware.

Intel developers have just now added the necessary code for the Video Acceleration API (VA-API) for Linux to offer support for hardware decoding of HEVC/H.265 content on their upcoming Intel Skylake processor architecture, meaning that their hardware for it is not even available yet to buy.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...px=MTg1MzU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_%28...tecture%29

And as far as I know only third-generation Maxwell GPUs by Nvidia is the only one you can buy today that support HEVC decoding in the hardware, but even on those the HEVC encoder has not yet been exposed through their public SDK in any case.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...px=MTc1MTc
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidi...0-review/5
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.p...&t=1257409

From what I've been told, there are two ways main ways a GPU helps decode video. One is being able to fully decode it in hardware, the other is partial decoding support where only certain calculations are hardware accelerated. The way things are now, XBMC/Kodi needs full hardware video decoding.

Yes at least on the Nvidia Tegra K1 platform which includes support for HEVC/H.265 video decode however this isn’t accelerated fully in hardware, rather the decode is split across NVENC (Nvidia's Video Engine core) and CPU, however it is accesses through the same API so this is not something that the application developer or users need to think about and all they will noticed is the CPU running higher on HEVC/H.265 decode compare to what it does on H.264 decode.