Read Me

Read Me (PDF)
Read Me (PDF)

System Requirements

Note:

Note: NVIDIA Video Codec SDK is now supported on IBM Power9 class server with NVIDIA Tesla V100 (SXM2) GPU.


Windows Configuration Requirements

  • DirectX SDK is needed. You can download the latest SDK from Microsoft's DirectX website.
  • The Vulkan SDK needs to be installed in order to build and run the AppMotionEstimationVkCuda sample application.
  • In order to build and run AppEncD3D12 sample application, Windows 20H1 or later is required. Visual Studio 2017 and above should be used for building and running this application.
  • In Windows, the following environment variables must be set to build the sample applications included with the SDK
    • DXSDK_DIR: pointing to the DirectX SDK root directory.
    • VULKAN_SDK: pointing to Vulkan SDK install directory.
    • The CUDA Toolkit and the related environment variables are optional to install if the client has Video Codec SDK 8.0. However, they are mandatory if client has Video Codec SDK 8.1 or above on his/her machine.
  • Plus all the requirements under System Requirements and Common to all OS platforms

Linux Configuration Requirements

  • X11 and OpenGL, GLUT, GLEW libraries for video playback and display
  • CUDA Toolkit is mandatory if client has Video Codec SDK 8.1 or above on his/her machine.
  • Libraries and headers from the FFmpeg project which can be downloaded and installed using the distribution's package manager or compiled from source.
    • The sample applications have been compiled and tested against the libraries and headers from FFmpeg- 4.4. The source code of FFmpeg- 4.4 has been included in this SDK package. While configuring FFmpeg on Linux, it is recommended not to use 'disable-decoders' option. This configuration is known to have a channel error (XID 31) while executing sample applications with certain clips and/or result in an unexpected behavior.
  • To build/use sample applications that depend on FFmpeg, users may need to
    • Add the directory (/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig by default) to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable. This is required by the Makefile to determine the include paths for the FFmpeg headers.
    • Add the directory where the FFmpeg libraries are installed to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. This is required for resolving runtime dependencies on FFmpeg libraries.
  • Stub libraries (libnvcuvid.so and libnvidia-encode.so) have been included as part of the SDK package, in order to aid development of applications on systems where the NVIDIA driver has not been installed. The sample applications in the SDK will link against these stub libraries as part of the build process. However, users need to ensure that the stub libraries are not referenced when running the sample applications. A driver compatible with this SDK needs to be installed in order for the sample applications to work correctly.
  • The Vulkan SDK needs to be installed in order to build and run the AppMotionEstimationVkCuda sample application.
  • Plus all the requirements under System Requirements and Common to all OS platforms

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Configuration Requirements

  • CUDA Toolkit is mandatory if client has Video Codec SDK 8.1 or above on his/her machine.
  • Libraries and headers from the FFmpeg project which can be downloaded and installed using the distribution's package manager or compiled from source.
    • The sample applications have been compiled and tested against the libraries and headers from FFmpeg- 4.4. The source code of FFmpeg- 4.4 has been included in this SDK package. While configuring FFmpeg on WSL, it is recommended not to use 'disable-decoders' option. This configuration is known to have a channel error (XID 31) while executing sample applications with certain clips and/or result in an unexpected behavior.
  • To build/use sample applications that depend on FFmpeg, users may need to
    • Add the directory (/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig by default) to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable. This is required by the Makefile to determine the include paths for the FFmpeg headers.
    • Add the directory where the FFmpeg libraries are installed to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. This is required for resolving runtime dependencies on FFmpeg libraries.
  • Plus all the requirements under System Requirements and Common to all OS platforms

Common to all OS platforms

Building Samples

Video Codec SDK uses CMake for building the samples. To build the samples, follow these steps:

Windows:

  1. Install all dependencies for Windows, as specified in Windows Configuration Requirements
  2. Extract the contents of the SDK into a folder.
  3. Create a subfolder named "build" in Video_Codec_SDK_x.y.z/Samples
  4. Open a command prompt in the "build" folder and run the following command, depending upon the version of Visual Studio on your computer.
    • Visual Studio 2019: cmake -G"Visual Studio 16 2019" -A"x64" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=. ..
    • Visual Studio 2017: cmake -G"Visual Studio 15 2017" -A"x64" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=. ..
    • Visual Studio 2015: cmake -G"Visual Studio 14 2015" -A"x64" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=. ..

This command will generate the necessary Visual Studio project files in the "build" folder. You can open NvCodec.sln file in Visual Studio and build. Alternatively, following command can be used to build the solution:

cmake --build . --target install --config Release

The application binaries will be available in Samples/build. Please note that the applications are validated only for x64 platform.

Linux:

  1. Install all dependencies for Linux, as specified in Linux Configuration Requirements.
  2. Extract the contents of the SDK into a folder.
  3. Create a subfolder named "build" in Video_Codec_SDK_x.y.z/Samples
  4. Use the following command to build samples in release mode.
    • cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
    • make
    • make install

This will build and install the binaries of the sample applications. The application binaries will be available in Samples/build.

Windows Subsystem for Linux:

  1. Install all dependencies for Windows Subsystem for Linux, as specified in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Configuration Requirements.
  2. Follow the build and installation steps provided above for Linux. Applications using OpenGL and Vulkan will not be built.

Notice

This document is provided for information purposes only and shall not be regarded as a warranty of a certain functionality, condition, or quality of a product. NVIDIA Corporation (“NVIDIA”) makes no representations or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this document and assumes no responsibility for any errors contained herein. NVIDIA shall have no liability for the consequences or use of such information or for any infringement of patents or other rights of third parties that may result from its use. This document is not a commitment to develop, release, or deliver any Material (defined below), code, or functionality.

NVIDIA reserves the right to make corrections, modifications, enhancements, improvements, and any other changes to this document, at any time without notice.

Customer should obtain the latest relevant information before placing orders and should verify that such information is current and complete.

NVIDIA products are sold subject to the NVIDIA standard terms and conditions of sale supplied at the time of order acknowledgment, unless otherwise agreed in an individual sales agreement signed by authorized representatives of NVIDIA and customer (“Terms of Sale”). NVIDIA hereby expressly objects to applying any customer general terms and conditions with regards to the purchase of the NVIDIA product referenced in this document. No contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document.

NVIDIA products are not designed, authorized, or warranted to be suitable for use in medical, military, aircraft, space, or life support equipment, nor in applications where failure or malfunction of the NVIDIA product can reasonably be expected to result in personal injury, death, or property or environmental damage. NVIDIA accepts no liability for inclusion and/or use of NVIDIA products in such equipment or applications and therefore such inclusion and/or use is at customer’s own risk.

NVIDIA makes no representation or warranty that products based on this document will be suitable for any specified use. Testing of all parameters of each product is not necessarily performed by NVIDIA. It is customer’s sole responsibility to evaluate and determine the applicability of any information contained in this document, ensure the product is suitable and fit for the application planned by customer, and perform the necessary testing for the application in order to avoid a default of the application or the product. Weaknesses in customer’s product designs may affect the quality and reliability of the NVIDIA product and may result in additional or different conditions and/or requirements beyond those contained in this document. NVIDIA accepts no liability related to any default, damage, costs, or problem which may be based on or attributable to: (i) the use of the NVIDIA product in any manner that is contrary to this document or (ii) customer product designs.

Trademarks

NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, and cuBLAS, CUDA, CUDA Toolkit, cuDNN, DALI, DIGITS, DGX, DGX-1, DGX-2, DGX Station, DLProf, GPU, Jetson, Kepler, Maxwell, NCCL, Nsight Compute, Nsight Systems, NVCaffe, NVIDIA Deep Learning SDK, NVIDIA Developer Program, NVIDIA GPU Cloud, NVLink, NVSHMEM, PerfWorks, Pascal, SDK Manager, Tegra, TensorRT, TensorRT Inference Server, Tesla, TF-TRT, Triton Inference Server, Turing, and Volta are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the United States and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

© 2010-2021 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. Last updated on Oct 26, 2021.