freerdp(7)                            3.0                           freerdp(7)

CODEC BACKENDS
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.


BACKEND NAME
       FFMPEG - FFMPEG based H264 encoding/decoding support


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.
       2. The environment variables or configuration file must not have it
       disabled
       3. The hardware must actually support the requested accelerator


CONFIG FILE
        Format and Location:

           The configuration file is stored system wide or per user.

           The XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable can be used to override
           the base directory for per user configurations.

           The user configuration defaults to ~/.config The location relative
           to XDG_CONFIG_HOME is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/freerdp/ffmpeg.json

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

           The configuration is stored in JSON format

       Supported options:

           allowUserConfig

                   (system config only) Allow the user configuration file to
                   be used.

                   Default true
                   A JSON bool value

           allowEnvOverrides

                   Allow environment variables to be evaluated.

                   Default true
                   A JSON bool value

           seHwDecoderfR

                   Enable hardware accelerated decoding.

                   Default true
                   A JSON bool value

           useHwEncoder

                   Enable hardware accelerated encoding.

                   Default true
                   A JSON bool value

           hwDeviceType

                   Set acceleration API to use.

                   Default platform dependent default accelerator
                   A JSON string value

           hwDeviceName

                   Set hardware device to utilize.

                   Default Default device used by accelerator
                   A JSON string value


ENVIRONMENT
       FREERDP_VAAPI_DEVICE
              legacy option, superseded by FREERDP_HWCTX_DEVICE

       FREERDP_HWCTX_DEVICE
              For accelerators that support to select from different devices
              the device to us.

       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.


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


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


AUTHOR
       Armin Novak <anovak@thincast.com>


Version                         September 2026                      freerdp(7)