2013-07-29, 16:41
I have done some HEVC encoding and playback.
Software decoding is not too taxing up to 1080p. Its helped by the fact that the bitrates that people use will be relatively low. Main L4.0 has maxrate of 12Mbps and this is the profile and level that most people will use for encoding 1080p content. I expect 4-8Mbps will be the average bitrate used.
I have played 1080p 5Mbps HEVC on a slow dual core (eg G530) with less than 50% utilisation. Plus these are very early decoders, efficiency gains are possible.
In a couple of years time this kind of CPU power will be trivial. And hardware decoders will start to become available.
Obviously 4K is another thing entirely. I don't expect 4K to catch on in a big way to be honest, certainly not any time soon.
Software decoding is not too taxing up to 1080p. Its helped by the fact that the bitrates that people use will be relatively low. Main L4.0 has maxrate of 12Mbps and this is the profile and level that most people will use for encoding 1080p content. I expect 4-8Mbps will be the average bitrate used.
I have played 1080p 5Mbps HEVC on a slow dual core (eg G530) with less than 50% utilisation. Plus these are very early decoders, efficiency gains are possible.
In a couple of years time this kind of CPU power will be trivial. And hardware decoders will start to become available.
Obviously 4K is another thing entirely. I don't expect 4K to catch on in a big way to be honest, certainly not any time soon.
