HACKER Q&A
📣 hknmtt

Buld a server for live video encoding


I would like to build a server to encode live video into multiple quality streams(1080p, 720p, 480p...) on the fly.

I know google has their own Argos VCU, which is proprietary. Are there any alternatives on the open market or do I have to go with graphics cards? Also, which exact components would you actually use and how much data can it handle? Also I'd like AV1 hw support as well to future-proof it.

  👤 wsh Accepted Answer ✓
NETINT (https://netint.com/) offers hardware video processing units that work with several codecs, including AV1.

There are also hardware encoders, in card or appliance form factors, from established broadcast suppliers, such as Ateme, Haivision, Harmonic, and VITEC.

👤 clouddrover
If you want hardware live encoding in AV1 then the Intel Arc GPU does that pretty well:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-arc-av1-encoder-domi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctbTTRoqZsM

https://www.pcworld.com/article/827992/tested-intel-arc-av1-...

The fastest software AV1 encoder at the moment is SVT-AV1:

https://gitlab.com/AOMediaCodec/SVT-AV1/

👤 phillipseamore
The only commercially available options for AV1 are GPUs, most of the FPGA solutions are proprietary or support just a single stream. You can also check out netint.com for ffmpeg HW acceleration of x264 and more (though no AV1 support).