.\" Written by Armin Novak (anovak@thincast.com)
.\" Process this file with
.\" groff -man -Tascii freerdp.7
.\"
.TH freerdp 7 "September 2026" Version "3.0"
.SH CODEC BACKENDS

.SH DESCRIPTION

H264 encoding and decoding can be provided by various backends. Not all of them might be available depending
on operating system in use and compilation options used.

.SH BACKEND NAME
FFMPEG \- FFMPEG based H264 encoding/decoding support

.SH DESCRIPTION

H264 encoding and decoding can be provided by various backends. One of these utilizes the FFMPEG framework.
It provides a high level abstraction that is capable of using hardware backed encoding and decoding.

To enable this feature these three requirements must be met:

1. The RDP client or server must enable support for this feature.
.br
2. The environment variables or configuration file must not have it disabled
.br
3. The hardware must actually support the requested accelerator
.br

.SH CONFIG FILE

.PP
 Format and Location:

.RS 4
The configuration file is stored system wide or per user\&.
.br

The
\fIXDG_CONFIG_HOME\fR
environment variable can be used to override the base directory for per user configurations\&.
.br

The user configuration defaults to
\fI~/\&.config\fR
The location relative to
\fIXDG_CONFIG_HOME\fR
is
\fI$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/freerdp/ffmpeg\&.json\fR
.br

For system wide configurations the default is 
\fI/etc/freerdp/ffmpeg.json\fR

The configuration is stored in JSON format
.RE
.PP
Supported options:
.RS 4
.PP
\fIallowUserConfig\fR
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
(system config only) Allow the user configuration file to be used\&.
.br

Default
\fItrue\fR
.br
A JSON bool value
.RE
.RE
.PP
\fIallowEnvOverrides\fR
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
Allow environment variables to be evaluated\&.
.br

Default
\fItrue\fR
.br
A JSON bool value
.RE
.RE
.PP
\fI\useHwDecoderfR
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
Enable hardware accelerated decoding\&.
.br

Default
\fItrue\fR
.br
A JSON bool value
.RE
.RE
.PP
\fIuseHwEncoder\fR
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
Enable hardware accelerated encoding\&.
.br

Default
\fItrue\fR
.br
A JSON bool value
.RE
.RE
.PP
\fIhwDeviceType\fR
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
Set acceleration API to use\&.
.br

Default
\fIplatform dependent default accelerator\fR
.br
A JSON string value
.RE
.RE
.PP
\fIhwDeviceName\fR
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
Set hardware device to utilize\&.
.br

Default
\fIDefault device used by accelerator\fR
.br
A JSON string value
.RE
.RE

.SH ENVIRONMENT
.IP FREERDP_VAAPI_DEVICE
legacy option, superseded by FREERDP_HWCTX_DEVICE
.IP FREERDP_HWCTX_DEVICE
For accelerators that support to select from different devices the device to us.
.IP FREERDP_HWCTX_TYPE
The accelerator type, see enum AVHWDeviceType for possible supported accelerators. Use av_hwdevice_get_type_name to get the actual values that can be put here.

.SH BUGS
Please report any bugs at https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/issues

.SH "SEE ALSO"
Additional information and the latest version is available at:
.B https://freerdp.com

.SH AUTHOR
Armin Novak <anovak@thincast.com>