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