Transcoding accelerators #
Introduced in Nimbra Edge R3.25
Supported accelerators #
Nimbra Edge supports various hardware accelerators for accelerating video transcoding. The available accelerators depend on the type of video node.
Kubernetes video nodes #
Supported accelerators:
- NVIDIA GPUs with driver version 570 or above (Requires NVIDIA driver and k8s-device-plugin)
Requires the Edge installation to be installed/upgraded with the --transcode-accelerator nvidia flag.
All compatible NVIDIA GPUs on all Kubernetes video nodes in the region will be available for transcoding.
Nodes installed with the connectit installer
#
Supported accelerators:
- NVIDIA GPUs with driver version 570 or above (Requires NVIDIA driver and Container Toolkit)
- NETINT Quadra T1U, T1A, T2A
Available accelerators are automatically detected during installation.
Accelerator Capabilities #
The table below shows the capabilities of different accelerators:
| Feature | NVIDIA GPU | NETINT Quadra | CPU (Software) |
|---|---|---|---|
| H.262 (MPEG-2) | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| H.264 (AVC) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| H.265 (HEVC) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| 4:2:0 8-bit | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| 4:2:2 8-bit | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ ¹ |
| 4:4:4 8-bit | ✅ | ❌ | ⚠️ ¹ |
| 4:2:0 10-bit | ⚠️ ² | ✅ | ⚠️ ¹ |
| 4:2:2 10-bit | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ ¹ |
| 4:4:4 10-bit | ⚠️ ² | ❌ | ⚠️ ¹ |
| Progressive | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Interlaced | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ ³ |
| Resolution Scaling | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Overlays | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Deinterlacing | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Legend:
- ✅ Fully supported
- ⚠️ Partial support
- ❌ Not supported
¹ H.264 and H.265 only
² H.265 only
³ H.262 and H.264 only
Limitations #
When transcoding parameters are not supported by the available accelerator, transcoding will automatically fall back to CPU software encoding. This is represented in the Encoder Compatibility section:
CPU software encoding is significantly slower than hardware acceleration and may not achieve acceptable performance, especially at higher resolutions and bitrates. Use hardware accelerators whenever possible for production workloads, or deploy on high-performance CPU nodes dedicated to transcoding tasks.
Accelerator Details #
NVIDIA GPU #
NVIDIA GPU encoding features vary depending on the specific GPU model and its generation. Most NVIDIA GPUs support progressive encoding in 4:2:0 8-bit and 4:4:4 8-bit pixel formats for H.264 and 4:2:0 8-bit, 4:2:0 10-bit, 4:4:4 8-bit and 4:4:4 10-bit pixel formats for H.265.
For more information on specific devices, see the NVIDIA Video Encode and Decode Support Matrix.
NETINT Quadra #
NETINT Quadra devices support H.264 and H.265 progressive encoding in 4:2:0 8-bit and 4:2:0 10-bit pixel formats.
The specific capacity of each device is specified on the NETINT website.