.. _digital-intermediate:
-VA-API H.264 encoding
----------------------
+VA-API H.264 encoding (optional)
+--------------------------------
Even on modern networks and with today's large SSDs, uncompressed HD video is a
bit unwieldy to send around (uncompressed 720p60 4:2:0 is about 79 MB/sec,
(for future editing or re-streaming) or sent to an encoder on another machine
for final streaming.
-Currently, only VA-API is supported for encoding the digital intermediate, although Nageru might
-support NVIDIA's NVENC at some point in the future. In particular, this means that Intel Quick
-Sync Video (QSV), the hardware H.264 encoder present on all modern Intel
-GPUs, is supported. QSV is more than fast enough to keep up with 720p60 in
+Although you can (since Nageru 1.5.0) use software encoding through x264 for
+the digital intermediate, it is generally preferred to use a hardware encoder
+if it is available. Currently, VA-API is the only hardware encoding method
+supported for encoding the digital intermediate, although Nageru might support
+NVIDIA's NVENC at some point in the future. In particular, this means that
+Intel Quick Sync Video (QSV), the hardware H.264 encoder present on all modern
+Intel GPUs, is supported.
+
+QSV is more than fast enough to keep up with 720p60 in
realtime without eating appreciably into the power budget, but it is not
competitive with the top H.264 encoders in terms of quality per bit. Also,
the stream is encoded using *constant quality* (fixed quantizer), not