Video Acceleration API (VA API) is a library ("libVA") and API specification
which enables and provides access to graphics hardware (GPU) acceleration for
video processing on Linux and UNIX based operating systems. Accelerated
processing includes video decoding, video encoding, subpicture blending and
rendering. The specification was originally designed by Intel for its GMA
(Graphics Media Accelerator) series of GPU hardware, the API is however not
limited to GPUs or Intel specific hardware, as other hardware and manufacturers
can also freely use this API for hardware accelerated video decoding.