Using hardware acceleration with libavcodec

Question

I have downloaded a software (info-beamer) and I would like to use the GPU acceleration to decode H.264 videos. I know my platform is able to decode H.264 videos by using the GPU. I performed some tests with gstreamer using the following command and the video plays smoothly without too much CPU usage:

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=./Sintel.mp4 ! qtdemux ! vaapidecode ! vaapisink

But when I play the same video with info-beamer 100% of the CPU is used. I thought libavcodec would automatically use VAAPI if available ... Should I use another library? What am I doing wrong?

My platform is running an Atom E3826 with intel HD and has Ubuntu 14.04 installed.

EDIT:

I think I installed all the required libraries:

nap@nap:~$ dpkg -l | grep libva
ii  libva-dev:amd64                             1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- development files
ii  libva-drm1:amd64                            1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- DRM runtime
ii  libva-egl1:amd64                            1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- EGL runtime
ii  libva-glx1:amd64                            1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- GLX runtime
ii  libva-intel-vaapi-driver                    1.3.0-1ubuntu1                                      all          VAAPI driver for Intel G45 & HD Graphics family (transitional package)
ii  libva-tpi1:amd64                            1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- TPI runtime
ii  libva-wayland1:amd64                        1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- Wayland runtime
ii  libva-x11-1:amd64                           1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- X11 runtime
ii  libva1:amd64                                1.3.0-2                                             amd64        Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- runtime
nap@nap:~$ dpkg -l | grep vaapi
ii  gstreamer1.0-vaapi:amd64                    0.5.7-0ubuntu4                                      amd64        VA-API plugins for GStreamer
ii  libgstreamer-vaapi1.0-0:amd64               0.5.7-0ubuntu4                                      amd64        GStreamer libraries from the "vaapi" set
ii  libva-intel-vaapi-driver                    1.3.0-1ubuntu1                                      all          VAAPI driver for Intel G45 & HD Graphics family (transitional package)

Here is the output of vainfo:

nap@nap:~$ sudo vainfo 
error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment.
libva info: VA-API version 0.35.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_35
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.35 (libva 1.3.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver - 1.3.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD

Solution

Still working on it, I wrongly assumed hardware codec was a AVCodec => it is not the case. AVHWAccel is bound to context it is not the direct codec... so avcodec_find_decoder_by_name("h264_vaapi") won't return anything.

info-beamer does not support hardware decoding codec (which is h264_vaapi):

video.c code:

video->codec = avcodec_find_decoder(video->codec_context->codec_id);

I added

if (video->codec_context->hwaccel != NULL)
  {
    fprintf(stderr, "HW accel IN USE : %s\n", video->codec_context->hwaccel->name);
  }
else
  {
    fprintf(stderr, "NO HW accel IN USE\n");
  }

and "NO HW accel IN USE\n" is displayed, while I checked previously that it is registered:

fprintf(stderr,"\n hw Decoders\n");
AVHWAccel *first_hwaccel   = av_hwaccel_next(NULL);
fprintf(stderr,"%p", first_hwaccel);
AVHWAccel *hwaccel = first_hwaccel; 
AVHWAccel *h264 = NULL; 
const char * h264_name = "h264_vaapi";
while (hwaccel != NULL) 
  {
if ( hwaccel != NULL)
  {
    fprintf(stderr,"%s ", hwaccel->name);
    if (strcmp(hwaccel->name, h264_name)== 0)
      {
    h264=hwaccel;
      }
  }
hwaccel=av_hwaccel_next(hwaccel);

if (hwaccel == first_hwaccel)
  {
    break;
  }
  }
fprintf(stderr,"\n");

It displays this:

hw Decoders
0x7f19af53fa80h263_vaapi h263_vdpau h264_vaapi h264_vdpau mpeg1_vdpau mpeg2_vaapi mpeg2_vdpau mpeg4_vaapi mpeg4_vdpau vc1_vaapi vc1_vdpau wmv3_vaapi wm3
_vdpau 

So libavcodec knows about those, but stream-beamer does not use them.

video.c code claims in header to be forked from avcodec_sample.0.5.0.c ... so it was not fully written by the info-beamer team.