How To Install intel-media-va-driver on Ubuntu

Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )

3 minutes • 449 words

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install intel-media-va-driver on Ubuntu.

What is `intel-media-va-driver`

intel-media-va-driver is:

The VA-API (Video Acceleration API) enables hardware accelerated video decode/encode at various entry-points (VLD, IDCT, Motion Compensation etc.) for the prevailing coding standards today (MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP/H.263, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/WMV3). It provides an interface to fully expose the video decode capabilities in today’s GPUs.

This package contains the video decode and encode driver backend for the Intel HD Graphics of the Intel Core processor family. The supported platforms include:

Broadwell
Skylake
Broxton
Apollo Lake
Kaby Lake
Coffee Lake
Whiskey Lake
Cannon Lake
Ice Lake

Only a limited set of encoders is available via this driver: JPEG (Skylake and newer), AVC (Boxton and newer), HEVC and VP9 (Ice Lake and newer). Media shaders are only available on Ice Lake and newer.

There are three methods to install intel-media-va-driver on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install intel-media-va-driver Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install intel-media-va-driver using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install intel-media-va-driver

Install intel-media-va-driver Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install intel-media-va-driver using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install intel-media-va-driver

Install intel-media-va-driver Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install intel-media-va-driver using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install intel-media-va-driver

How To Uninstall intel-media-va-driver on Ubuntu

To uninstall only the intel-media-va-driver package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove intel-media-va-driver

Uninstall intel-media-va-driver And Its Dependencies

To uninstall intel-media-va-driver and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove intel-media-va-driver

Remove intel-media-va-driver Configurations and Data

To remove intel-media-va-driver configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge intel-media-va-driver

Remove intel-media-va-driver configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove intel-media-va-driver configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge intel-media-va-driver

Dependencies

intel-media-va-driver have the following dependencies:

References

intel-media-va-driver website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install intel-media-va-driver package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.