Video Core Next

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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

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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

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All versions of VCN support: MPEG-2 Decode, MPEG-4 Decode, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Encode/Decode, HEVC (H.265) Encode/Decode, and VP9 Decode. 10-bit color depth 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 since VCN 3.0, excepting 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 JPEG H.262
(MPEG-2) 		VC-1/WMV 9 H.264
(MPEG-4 AVC) 		H.265
(HEVC) 		VP9 AV1
Decode Decode Decode Decode Encode Decode Encode Decode Decode Encode
B-frame[a] Pre-analysis[b] Resolution， color depth Chroma Resolution,

color depth

VCN 1.0 Raven, Picasso Yes Yes Yes Yes No ? 4K @ 10b Yes 4K @ 10b Yes No No
VCN 2.0 Navi 1x Yes[11] 8K @ 10b 8K @ 10b
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 No No No No No No
VCN 3.1.0 Van Gogh[14] Yes Yes Yes Yes 8K @ 10b 8K @ 10b Yes
VCN 3.1.1 Rembrandt,[15] Mendocino No
VCN 3.1.2[16] Raphael, Dragon Range
VCN 4.0[17][18] Navi 3x, Phoenix Yes
VCN 5.0 Navi 4x

Quality

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Early versions of AMD VCN had lower overall quality (VMAF) compared to offerings from Intel and Nvidia. B-frame support narrowed the gap, but did not eliminate it;[8] further improvements, including pre-analysis, resulted in nearly equivalent performance to competitors at the release of VCN 4.0.[9][19]

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.[20]

See also

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Video hardware technologies

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Nvidia

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AMD

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Intel

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Qualcomm

References

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  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. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  5. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  6. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  7. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  8. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  9. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  10. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). – See explanation by rhutsAMD.
  11. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  12. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  13. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  14. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  15. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  16. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  17. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  18. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  19. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  20. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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  • 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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