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About MainConcept
Easy Video API (EVA)
Control hardware & software codecs through a single API
Multi-Codec Support for a Multi-GPU World
The MainConcept Easy Video API (EVA) eliminates the need to choose between hardware and software. It is a set of libraries for the most common video codecs: AVC/H.264, HEVC/H.265, JPEG XS, AV1 as well as color conversion and scaling.
MainConcept EVA combines MainConcept’s industry-leading software encoding, decoding and processing technologies with the high performance of today’s GPU hardware processing powered by AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm .
Since one API is used instead of four, MainConcept EVA can reduce implementation time and costs by 80%.
Seamless On-GPU Pipelines & Workflows
Our EVA (Easy Video API) unifies workflows, simplifies API calls and reduces the number of frames copied and held in memory. When using GPU, EVA eliminates the need to shift frames between CPU and GPU memory since a fully GPU-enabled color conversion and scaling module is built into all encoders and decoders. EVA also unifies across codecs and platforms. All API calls and structures are aligned, making video codecs easily interchangeable, especially valuable when building multi-codec media processing workflows.
Software or Hardware Processing? Not a dilemma anymore!
Almost every notebook, desktop and server come with GPUs and hardware codecs from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm, even in the cloud. When quality is key, MainConcept software codecs provide better quality and an extended feature set. The choice between CPU or GPU encoding and decoding is complex. MainConcept EVA lets you use both!
Our all-in-one libraries make the decision simple by providing a single API for all vendors.
Available with these MainConcept SDKs
In the news
Press release: MainConcept Easy Video API launches with all-in-one support for the latest hardware codecs
Video: Introducing EVA
Flyer: MainConcept Easy Video API
Multi-GPU vendor support
AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel, the leading GPU providers, develop codecs like AVC, HEVC, JPEG XS and AV1 for their GPUs. Integrating different hardware SDKs for encoding and decoding, such as Intel Quick Sync Video, NVIDIA NVENC/NVDEC, Qualcomm Adreno and AMD AMF, can be time-consuming.
MainConcept EVA offers the flexibility of a single API along with the choice of software or hardware coding.
Expanded features and options
Developers must often choose between software and hardware video coding options. The choice for some simply comes down to whether running on the GPU or CPU, but that can be too simplistic for many use cases. CPU-based software encoders typically achieve better quality and offer a wider feature set, especially with production formats like 10-bit 4:2:2. However, for use cases targeting high processing performance, GPU codecs are the preferred choice if the required format is supported.
Save integration time
With MainConcept EVA, developers only need a single integration cycle. Working with one SDK instead of five means 80% less integration efforts. Plus, there are fewer contact points should any support issues arise. With a single API, developers gain more hardware choice and flexibility, being able to select the GPU that is right for the specific need, increasing the possible number of use-cases for their software application or service.
Processing Tools powered by CUDA
Besides pure software processing, the Universal Color Converter (UCC) is now also running on NVIDIA hardware, using a CUDA implementation for high performance image scaling as well as color conversion on GPU, significantly freeing the CPU for other resource intensive tasks.
MainConcept EVA benefits
- Individual SDKs with a single API instead of five, saving time (up to 80%) and budget.
- Flexibility to choose the GPU that is right for the use case, from AMD, Intel and NVIDIA.
- Consume less energy with more power efficient GPUs.
- Extended codec features for improved quality and professional formats (including 10-bit 4:2:2) using the MainConcept software libraries.
- API to retrieve decoded images directly from GPU memory when using NVIDIA hardware
- Function to detect hardware availability and codec capabilities.
- Single point of contact for development support.
- Same API for multi-platform Windows and Linux, for on-premise and cloud.
MainConcept EVA availability
| Codec |
MainConcept Software |
NVIDIA | Intel | AMD | Qualcomm |
| AVC/H.264 Video Encoder | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| AVC/H.264 Video Decoder | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HEVC/H.265 Video Encoder | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| HEVC/H.265 Video Decoder | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AV1 Video Encoder | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| JPEG XS Video Encoder | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| JPEG XS Video Decoder | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Universal Color Space Converter (UCC) | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
