[UPDATE]Read here, how to install VDR on Karmic Koala with Binary Packages.[/UPDATE]
I’m running a patched VDR 1.7.0 with a SkyStar HD (with the Technotrend DVB S2 3200 driver), a svn xine-lib-1.2 and the H264 capable vdr-xine plugin fron Mr. Nissl. (See here the whole thread).

Actually there are two ways to run VDR 1.7 in HD mode. One with the native xine-lib-1.2, which uses ffmpeg behind the scenes, of course. Or one can use a special xine-plugin which is able to use CoreAVC’s CoreAVCDecoder.ax library. I use the second method, because on a x86-64 system (Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex) xine-lib-1.2 multi-threading doesn’t work for me and my patched VDR very well (actually not at all, it did for a 32bit Ubuntu 7.10 a while ago).

Now – maybe a few of us already noticed – NVIDIA’s VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for UNIX) was released on 14th of November 2008 and mplayer patches have been provided by NVIDIA, so one can already use mplayer for H.264 encoded and other content. The MythTV team did a quick job, and already integrated NVIDIA’s patches into MythTV itself (ffmpeg), and shared their improvements again with the developers from NVIDIA. This is no academic buzz, neither it has only theoretic nature, but manifests itself into an already available NVIDIA driver for Linux – the version 180.16, published on 12th of December, 2008.

Now, since VDR plugins like xineliboutput (with its vdr-sxfe) and vdr-xine relay on xine-lib (respectively svn version 1.2) in oder to operate regarding H.264 encoded content, one might have already asked himself where the xine-lib video output support for vdpau is. Well – at least I did.

And – I’ve found a few tender signs, development is going on, but no working code has been published yet. One xine-lib developer(?) (forum name: jusst) posted a promising comment at NVIDIA’s forum:

We’re making good progress, but regarding h264 interlaced streams I have another question: …

So – please correct me if I’m wrong, but at this point in time there is no vdr-xine or xineliboutput plugin available, which would be able to use NVIDIA’s VDPAU H.264 hardware acceleration support.

I’ll just stay tuned to this, and we’ll give an update, as soon I hear any news from this site.