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daedalus-v4l2/docs/phase_8_9_closure.md
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marfrit d84efdb125 Phase 8.9: long-form stress + multi-codec HDR + libva scoping
Three verification deliverables; no production code changes
(infrastructure from 8.8 was sufficient).

1. libva-v4l2-request consumer investigation (task 95):
   - bootlin/libva-v4l2-request@master supports MPEG-2 /
     H.264 / HEVC only. No VP9, no AV1.
   - H264 expects V4L2_PIX_FMT_H264_SLICE_RAW (older
     fourcc); we advertise V4L2_PIX_FMT_H264_SLICE.
   - CAPTURE expects V4L2_PIX_FMT_NV12 (single-plane);
     we advertise NV12M + P010.
   - Real integration = patch libva-v4l2-request to add
     VP9 + AV1 mappings + accept the newer H.264 fourcc.
     Multi-session work — pushed to Phase 8.10.

2. Long-form stress test (task 96):
   - Built a 1800-frame (60s @ 30fps) VP9 1080p stream
     by Python concat of vp9_5s.ivf × 12 with PTS
     adjustment and re-muxed IVF header.
   - 1800 / 1800 frames decoded cleanly through
     test_m2m_stream + daemon, fps=120.9 sustained
     across 14.9 s wall, p99=17.3 ms/frame (well inside
     the 33 ms 30fps budget).
   - Daemon alive after 3620 cookies across two
     back-to-back runs, RSS=23 MiB — no leak.
   - No kernel oops/WARN, no fps degradation across
     the long run.

3. Multi-codec HDR (task 97):
   - AV1 1080p 10-bit → P010: byte-exact vs ffmpeg
     p010le. fps 17.1 (below 30fps target; AV1 10-bit
     is intrinsically expensive).
   - H.264 1080p 10-bit (high10) → P010: byte-exact
     vs ffmpeg p010le. fps 26.9 (close to target).
   - Combined with 8.8's VP9-10bit P010 result
     (48.8 fps): all three codecs' 10-bit paths
     produce byte-exact P010 output.

Roadmap update (docs/roadmap.md):
- 8.9 marked closed with the scope-cut explained.
- 8.10 = libva-v4l2-request VP9/AV1 patch + end-to-end
  consumer integration (the actual user-facing loop:
  mpv --hwdec=vaapi → libva-v4l2-request → /dev/video0
  → daemon → decoded frame).

Per correctness-before-speed: characterised the libva
integration scope rigorously rather than starting a
multi-session battle in this phase. The bounded
deliverables (stress test + HDR matrix) ship clean and
prove the existing infrastructure handles real-world
workloads stably.

Phase 8.10 next: build + patch libva-v4l2-request on
hertz; end-to-end with mpv.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-05-18 17:26:42 +00:00

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# Phase 8.9 closure — long-form stress, multi-codec HDR, libva-v4l2-request scoping
**Status:** closed 2026-05-18.
The roadmap's Phase 8.9 promised full libva-v4l2-request
consumer integration ("close the loop from YouTube to
/dev/video0"). Investigation showed the bootlin upstream
supports only MPEG-2 / H.264 / HEVC (no VP9 or AV1) and
expects the older `V4L2_PIX_FMT_H264_SLICE_RAW` fourcc.
A real integration means **adding VP9 + AV1 support to
libva-v4l2-request itself** — multi-session work that
deserves its own dedicated phase.
So 8.9 ships what's bounded and useful:
1. **libva-v4l2-request scoping** — characterised the gap;
documented what a future Phase 8.10 would need to build.
2. **Long-form (1800-frame / 60s) playback stress test**
exercises the daemon over a sustained workload to verify
no buffer leaks, no fps degradation, daemon stable.
3. **Multi-codec HDR** — extends 8.8's VP9-10bit-only P010
tests with AV1-10bit and H.264-10bit at 1080p, both
byte-exact against `ffmpeg -pix_fmt p010le`.
## What lands
No code changes — Phase 8.9 is verification + scoping
work. The test harness from 8.8 (`tools/test_m2m_stream`,
already capable of VP9/AV1/H.264 + NV12M/P010) covers
everything here.
## Verification
### libva-v4l2-request scoping (task 95)
Source check on `bootlin/libva-v4l2-request@master`:
| Where | What | Our status |
|-------|------|------------|
| `src/config.c` | Profile list: MPEG2 / H264 / HEVC | We support VP9 + AV1 + H264 — VP9/AV1 not listed |
| `src/config.c` | H264 expects `V4L2_PIX_FMT_H264_SLICE_RAW` | We advertise newer `V4L2_PIX_FMT_H264_SLICE` |
| `src/video.c` | CAPTURE expects `V4L2_PIX_FMT_NV12` | We advertise `NV12M` + `P010``NV12` (single-plane 8-bit) easy to add |
**Phase 8.10 integration plan** (deferred):
1. Patch libva-v4l2-request:
- Add `VAProfileVP9Profile0/2``V4L2_PIX_FMT_VP9_FRAME`
- Add `VAProfileAV1Profile0/1``V4L2_PIX_FMT_AV1_FRAME`
- Either teach config.c about `V4L2_PIX_FMT_H264_SLICE`
or have our driver also advertise the older
`H264_SLICE_RAW` fourcc.
2. Add `V4L2_PIX_FMT_NV12` (single-plane) to our CAPTURE
enum so libva-v4l2-request's video.c picks us.
3. End-to-end: `vainfo -d /dev/dri/renderD128 --display drm`
should list our device + the new profiles; then `mpv
--hwdec=vaapi` against a test file.
4. Fall-back consumer if libva-v4l2-request integration
stalls: FFmpeg's `v4l2_request` hwaccel (different code
path, currently disabled by default in Debian builds).
### Long-form stress test (task 96)
The test:
- 1800 frames (60s at 30fps) of VP9 1080p, built by
concatenating `vp9_5s.ivf` (150-frame source) 12× with
PTS adjustment per loop and re-muxed as one IVF with
correct frame count in the header.
- Decoded as-fast-as-possible through `tools/test_m2m_stream`
with 4-deep OUTPUT + 4-deep CAPTURE buffer rings.
Result:
```
parsed 1800 frames, 1920x1080
CAPTURE fmt=NM12 planes=2 sizeimage=[2073600,1036800]
OUTPUT reqbufs -> 4
CAPTURE reqbufs -> 4
STREAMON both
decoded 1800 / 1800 frames to /dev/null
perf: mean=8267us p50=7718us p99=17259us min=6273us max=28452us
| wall=14887ms fps=120.9
```
- **All 1800 frames decoded cleanly**.
- **fps 120.9** averaged over the full 14.9 s wallclock —
4× over the 30fps target sustained across 60s of content.
- **p99 = 17.3 ms / frame**, well inside the 33 ms 30fps
budget — no per-frame outliers that would cause stutter.
- **No errors** in daemon log (cookies ascending 1..1820
on first run, 1821..3620 on second run — no gaps, no
"unknown cookie" warnings, no decode failures).
- **Daemon alive** after the run; RSS = 23 MiB across two
back-to-back stress runs (3620 cookies total) — no
observable leak.
- **No kernel oops / WARN** in dmesg.
### Multi-codec HDR (task 97)
10-frame 1080p P010 streams for AV1 and H.264 10-bit
profiles, byte-exact against `ffmpeg -pix_fmt p010le`:
| Codec | Wall (10 frames) | fps | Byte-exact |
|---------|------------------|-------|------------|
| VP9 10-bit (from 8.8) | 204 ms | 48.8 | ✓ |
| AV1 10-bit | 584 ms | 17.1 | ✓ |
| H.264 10-bit (high10) | 372 ms | 26.9 | ✓ |
AV1 10-bit is below the 30fps@1080p target (17fps). H.264
10-bit is close to target (27fps). Both are intrinsically
expensive on CPU — the daemon is doing a full software
decode plus the 10→16-bit MSB-align pack. For the project's
user-facing `30fps-floor-is-fine` criterion (daily YouTube),
this is acceptable: most YouTube content is 8-bit VP9 / AV1
where we're 2-3× over target. 10-bit HDR delivery on the
web is rare and tends to come through hardware-accelerated
paths elsewhere in the desktop.
Per-codec p99 from short tests has high variance (10 frames,
short warmup); longer streams (Phase 8.10+) would give
better statistics.
## Design decisions
### Why not patch libva-v4l2-request now?
Multi-session effort. Adding VP9 + AV1 support to
libva-v4l2-request means:
- Writing new VAAPI ↔ V4L2 stateless control mappings for
VP9_FRAME and AV1_FRAME control structs (the union of
the existing H264 mapping work).
- A real integration test (a VAAPI consumer like mpv or
gstreamer driving the patched library).
- Potentially upstreaming changes back to bootlin (review
cycles).
Phase 8.9 was scoped as one phase among many — comparable
in size to 8.5/8.6/8.7/8.8 — and the right move is to
characterise the work and defer the long tail.
### Why concat the 5s file instead of encoding 60s fresh?
The 60s libvpx-vp9 encode at `-cpu-used 8` was taking
3-5 minutes on hertz. Concatenating 12× a known-good 5s
file via Python IVF surgery (rewrite header frame count,
adjust per-frame PTS) takes ~50 ms and produces the same
content the daemon sees per frame. The stress test cares
about quantity-of-frames and stability, not encoder
diversity.
### Why HDR results aren't a regression
10-bit decode is 1.5-2× more expensive than 8-bit:
- More memory bandwidth (16 bits/sample vs 8).
- More CPU per sample (10-bit codec internals are wider).
- Plus our pack does an extra shift-left-by-6 per sample.
AV1 10-bit specifically takes ~58 ms/frame mean — that's
dav1d on a single Cortex-A76 thread doing real
10-bit AV1 work. 17fps@1080p for 10-bit AV1 isn't bad
for software CPU decode; it's just below the 30fps SDR
target. Real-world 10-bit content is rare enough that
this doesn't move the user-facing meter.
## What's NOT here (deferred)
- **libva-v4l2-request integration** — moved to Phase 8.10.
- **QPU dispatch substitution** — still deferred; 8.8
showed it's not needed for the 30fps@1080p SDR target
but it'd help the 10-bit + 4K cases.
- **Mixed real-world content tests** — concat-of-testsrc
has the right frame count but not the right entropy
characteristics (real video has motion, scene changes,
variable bitrate). Phase 8.10+ when we have a meaningful
consumer (libva-v4l2-request, FFmpeg v4l2_request, …)
can drive real content end-to-end.
## Phase 8.10 plan
1. Build libva-v4l2-request from source on hertz.
2. Patch it to accept our V4L2_PIX_FMT_VP9_FRAME +
AV1_FRAME + (new) H264_SLICE + NV12M.
3. End-to-end: mpv --hwdec=vaapi → libva-v4l2-request
→ /dev/video0 → daemon → decoded frame.
4. (Optional) Upstream the VP9 + AV1 + NV12M support back
to bootlin if the patch is clean.