How to build ffmpeg with hardware accelerated codecs for Android x86

in order to build a complete ffmpeg with hardware acceleration for intel platform (xxx lake + atom), we need a complete android x86 build, the cross-compilation doesn't work well with ndk or anything else.

steps are below.

---

 install ubuntu 16.04 lts x86-64, install the all ubuntu dependencies as here.

sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential zip curl zlib1g-dev gcc-multilib g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 lib32ncurses5-dev x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev lib32z-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libxml2-utils xsltproc unzip

install python mako by pip, which the build system uses to generate the i18n files during compilation.

sudo apt-get install python-pip

pip install mako

get the source code of android x86, here make sure you have large enough space.

mkdir android-x86
cd android-x86
repo init -u git://git.osdn.net/gitroot/android-x86/manifest -b $branch
repo sync --no-tags --no-clone-bundle

the variable $branch is the name of specific android branch.

• oreo-x86
  • android 8.0
• nougat-x86
  • android 7.1
• marshmallow-x86
  • android 6.0
• lollipop-x86
  • android 5.1
• kitkat-x86
  • android 4.4
• jb-x86
  • android 4.3
• ics-x86
  • android 4.0
• honeycomb-x86
  • android 3.2
• gingerbread-x86
  • android 2.3
• froyo-x86
  • android 2.2
• eclair-x86
  • android 2.1
• donut-x86
  • android 1.6
• cupcake-x86 (aka android-x86-v0.9)
  • android 1.5

once the code base was checked out, use lunch command to build the system for once.

enter the folder of checked out folder.

source the build environement setup.

. build/envsetup.sh

select the build target and type of build

lunch $target_product-$target_build_variant

the $target_product could be one of android_x86 android_x86_64 .

the $target_build_variant could be one of eng user userdebug .

so if we want to make a debug version of android x86-64, we type

lunch android_x86_64-userdebug

now type

m -jx iso_img

to make the system image.

when there is the error about org.android.analytics, open the file

./build/core/tasks/check_boot_jars/package_whitelist.txt

 and append a line

org\.android_x86\.analytics

to it.

if everything goes okay, the android system image would be build.

---

 now we start to build a better ffmpeg with hardware acceleration api, vaapi, cuvid etc. the system already offer the possibilty but didn't supply the correct configuration as the default.

copy the file

external/ffmpeg/libavformat/android.mk

to

external/ffmpeg/libavfilter

if you want to build the command line of ffmpeg, create a new android.mk file under external/tools folder, fill it with content

local_path:= $(call my-dir)

include $(clear_vars)

local_cflags += \
  -dandroid \
  -dtarget_config=\"config-x86_64-x86_64.h\" \

local_src_files := \
    ../ffmpeg.c \
    ../ffmpeg_filter.c \
    ../ffmpeg_opt.c \
    ../ffmpeg_cuvid.c \
    ../ffmpeg_vaapi.c \
    ../cmdutils.c \

local_c_includes += \
  $(local_path)/android/include \
  $(local_path)/.. \

local_shared_libraries := libavutil libavcodec libswscale libswresample libswscale libavformat libavfilter

local_module_tags := optional
local_module := ffmpeg

include $(build_executable)

then that's it, you would have the ffmpeg command line under /system/bin/ffmpeg !

do not touch the script gen-android-configs and configure with ffmpeg.

now let's add more dependency to the system, such as libva-utils for the intel platform to detect the video codec capability of the system.

under the folder external, clone the repository at branch 1.8.3

git clone -b 1.8.3 https://github.com/intel/libva-utils.git

enter the libva-utils folder, change a bit the source code. the system's libva under driver is 1.1.0, it's not very compatible with the libva-utils, which is a new program.

diff --git a/vainfo/vainfo.c b/vainfo/vainfo.c
index 4405073..5d9f055 100644
--- a/vainfo/vainfo.c
+++ b/vainfo/vainfo.c
@@ -97,7 +97,8 @@ int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
   const char *name = strrchr(argv[0], '/'); 
   vaprofile profile, *profile_list = null;
   int num_profiles, max_num_profiles, i;
-  vaentrypoint entrypoint, entrypoints[10];
+  vaentrypoint entrypoints[10];
+  int entrypoint_index;
   int num_entrypoint;
   int ret_val = 0;
   
@@ -118,8 +119,8 @@ int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
   va_status = vainitialize(va_dpy, &major_version, &minor_version);
   check_vastatus(va_status, "vainitialize", 3);
   
-  printf("%s: va-api version: %d.%d (libva %s)\n",
-         name, major_version, minor_version, libva_version_s);
+  printf("%s: va-api version: %d.%d\n",
+         name, major_version, minor_version);
 
   driver = vaqueryvendorstring(va_dpy);
   printf("%s: driver version: %s\n", name, driver ? driver : "<unknown>");
@@ -149,8 +150,8 @@ int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
       check_vastatus(va_status, "vaqueryconfigentrypoints", 4);
 
       profile_str = profile_string(profile);
-      for (entrypoint = 0; entrypoint < num_entrypoint; entrypoint++)
-          printf("      %-32s: %s\n", profile_str, entrypoint_string(entrypoints[entrypoint]));
+      for (entrypoint_index = 0; entrypoint_index < num_entrypoint; entrypoint_index++)
+          printf("      %-32s: %s\n", profile_str, entrypoint_string(entrypoints[entrypoint_index]));

just make the vainfo.c is able to be compiled with system libva.

back to the folder android-x86, type

mmm external/libva-utils

to just build the specific module. that's it, now the /system/bin/vainfo would be there !

---

references

• http://www.android-x86.org/getsourcecode
• https://github.com/cyanogenmod/android_external_ffmpeg
• https://github.com/intel/libva
• https://github.com/intel/libva-utils