NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor - H.265 (HEVC) GStreamer Pipelines

Follow Us On

Share This Page

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Copy Link

Close

NVIDIA®Jetson AGX Thor™
Introduction
SoM Overview Carrier Boards NVIDIA Developer Kit Auvidea X241 Connect Tech Gauntlet
JetPack 7.0
Getting Started Installing JetPack Flashing the Board with GUI Installer JetPack Components Compiling Kernel and DTB Flashing the Board from Command Line Flashing the Board from USB Performance Tuning Evaluating Performance Set Values Manually Tuning Power Maximizing Performance
Development in the Board
Board Access Methods Using Serial Console Using SSH Using Ubuntu Login Installing Packages
Camera Support
Camera Over Ethernet (CoE) MIPI CSI IMX477 + J20 Driver
Blackwell GPU
GStreamer Pipelines
Capture and Display H.264 H.265
Holoscan
PVA
DeepStream
Installation Running Examples Performance Benchmarking
RidgeRun Products
GstCUDA RTSP Server Video Stitching Video Stabilization Bird's‑Eye View Qt Overlay GStreamer Browser Sink Development Suite Spherical Video PTZ
RidgeRun Open Source Projects
GstPerf GStreamer Daemon GstInterpipe GstShark
RidgeRun Reference Designs
Panoramic Stitching and WebRTC Streaming
Reference Documentation
Contact Us

GStreamer Pipelines using H.265 (HEVC)

This section presents GStreamer pipelines to demonstrate H.265 encoding and decoding on Jetson AGX Thor. The examples progress from raw video playback and software encoding to full camera capture pipelines with hardware acceleration. Performance metrics are provided for each case, tested under multiple power modes.

Note

Tested System: All pipelines were validated on the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit using JetPack 7.0 (Jetson Linux 38.2 / Ubuntu 24.04).

For benchmarking methodology, see GStreamer Pipelines Overview.

H.265 Encoding

H.265/HEVC provides significantly better compression than H.264 at similar quality, which is useful for higher resolutions and constrained bandwidth. Jetson AGX Thor supports HEVC encoding via NVIDIA hardware encoders as well as a CPU-based encoder.

Available Encoders

Table 1: H.265 Encoders Comparison

Feature	nvv4l2h265enc	nvautogpuh265enc	nvcudah265enc	nvh265enc	x265enc (CPU)
Backend	V4L2 (NVIDIA)	NVCODEC auto GPU	NVCODEC CUDA	NVENC API	x265
GPU Support	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
Input Memory	NVMM	CUDA, GLMemory	CUDA	CUDA	System
Input Formats	NV12, I420, Y444, P010_10LE, NV24	NV12, Y444	NV12, Y444	NV12, YV12, RGBA	I420, YUV420
Output Format	HEVC byte-stream (AU/NAL)	HEVC (avc/byte-stream)	HEVC (avc/byte-stream)	HEVC byte-stream	HEVC byte-stream
B-frames	0-2	0-4	0-4	0-4	full support
Notes	Lowest-latency NVMM path	Auto GPU selection	Manual GPU selection	Often bound to GPU0	Higher CPU load

Raw Video Encoding

This section demonstrates encoding synthetic video (no camera). Useful for validating encoder behavior and measuring baseline CPU/GPU load.

FILE=/tmp/test_hevc.mp4
WIDTH=1920
HEIGHT=1080
FRAMERATE=30/1

With x265enc (CPU)

gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc is-live=true ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  x265enc tune=zerolatency ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvv4l2h265enc

gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc is-live=true ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvvidconv ! "video/x-raw(memory:NVMM)" ! \
  nvv4l2h265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvautogpuh265enc

gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc is-live=true ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvautogpuh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvh265enc

gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc is-live=true ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

Camera Encoding Pipelines

MIPI CSI Camera (IMX676)

WIDTH=3552
HEIGHT=3556
FRAMERATE=64/1
FORMAT=NV12
FILE=/tmp/csi_hevc.mp4

With x265enc (CPU)

gst-launch-1.0 nvarguscamerasrc ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  x265enc tune=zerolatency ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvv4l2h265enc (HW, NVMM path)

gst-launch-1.0 nvarguscamerasrc ! \
  video/x-raw(memory:NVMM),width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvv4l2h265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvautogpuh265enc (HW, NVCODEC auto-GPU)

gst-launch-1.0 nvarguscamerasrc ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvautogpuh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvh265enc (HW, NVENC)

gst-launch-1.0 nvarguscamerasrc ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

USB Camera

WIDTH=3840
HEIGHT=2160
FRAMERATE=30/1
FILE=/tmp/usb_hevc.mp4

With x265enc (CPU)

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video2 ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  x265enc tune=zerolatency ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvv4l2h265enc (HW, NVMM path)

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video2 ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvvidconv ! "video/x-raw(memory:NVMM)" ! \
  nvv4l2h265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvautogpuh265enc (HW, NVCODEC auto-GPU)

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video2 ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvautogpuh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

With nvh265enc (HW, NVENC)

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video2 ! \
  video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=$FRAMERATE ! \
  nvh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$FILE -e

Camera over Ethernet (CoE)

Coming soon...

Encoding Performance

Table 2: HEVC Encoding Benchmark (1920x1080@30) — with encoder hardware utilization

Encoder	Backend	Hardware Block	Mode	CPU (%)	GPU 3D (%)	NVENC0 (%)	NVENC1 (%)	FPS	Latency (ms)
x265enc	x265	CPU	Default	22.43	—	—	—	3.56	264.52
x265enc	x265	CPU	Max Perf	22.87	—	—	—	7.23	131.31
nvv4l2h265enc	V4L2 (NVIDIA)	NVENC (HW)	Default	4.51	0.66	TBD	TBD	30.25	6.02
nvv4l2h265enc	V4L2 (NVIDIA)	NVENC (HW)	Max Perf	2.11	0.67	TBD	TBD	30.24	4.08
nvautogpuh265enc	NVCodec (auto)	NVENC (HW)	Default	4.52	2.75	TBD	TBD	30.24	5.84
nvautogpuh265enc	NVCodec (auto)	NVENC (HW)	Max Perf	2.12	0.67	TBD	TBD	30.24	4.04
nvh265enc	NVENC API	NVENC (HW)	Default	4.48	0.88	TBD	TBD	30.06	4.32
nvh265enc	NVENC API	NVENC (HW)	Max Perf	1.91	0.31	TBD	TBD	30.05	3.24

Note

Tip: Use tegrastats to observe NVENC/NVDEC utilization on Jetson. GPU 3D (%) is typically low for pure encode/decode unless CUDA-based processing is in the pipeline.

H.265 Decoding

Decoders Available

Table 3: H.265 Decoders Comparison

Decoder	Backend	Hardware Accel
nvv4l2decoder	V4L2 (NVIDIA)	Yes
nvh265dec	NVCodec	Yes
avdec_h265	libav	No (CPU-based)

Playback Pipelines

You may use these pipelines to decode the videos recorded with any of the encoding methods above.

Hardware Decode with nv3dsink

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=/tmp/filename.mp4 ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! nvv4l2decoder ! nv3dsink

NVCodec Hardware Decode

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=/tmp/filename.mp4 ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! nvh265dec ! videoconvert ! autovideosink

Software Decode with xvimagesink (CPU)

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=/tmp/filename.mp4 ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! avdec_h265 ! videoconvert ! xvimagesink

Decoding Performance

Table 4: HEVC Decoding Benchmark (1920x1080@30) — with decoder hardware utilization

Decoder	Backend	Hardware Block	Mode	CPU (%)	GPU 3D (%)	NVDEC0 (%)	NVDEC1 (%)	FPS	Latency (ms)
avdec_h265	libav	CPU	Default			—	—
avdec_h265	libav	CPU	Max Perf			—	—
nvv4l2decoder	V4L2 (NVIDIA)	NVDEC (HW)	Default			TBD	TBD
nvv4l2decoder	V4L2 (NVIDIA)	NVDEC (HW)	Max Perf			TBD	TBD
nvh265dec	NVCodec	NVDEC (HW)	Default			TBD	TBD
nvh265dec	NVCodec	NVDEC (HW)	Max Perf			TBD	TBD

H.265 Transcoding

Transcoding (decode → process → re-encode) is common when changing bitrate, codec profile, GOP structure, or when inserting analytics/watermarking. Below are representative decode+encode pipelines for Jetson AGX Thor.

Pipelines

The following pipelines demonstrate decoding and encoding using various decoder and encoder elements available on Jetson AGX Thor. All pipelines assume the source is a H.265-encoded MP4 file.

Set up common variables:

FILE=/tmp/filename.mp4
OUTFILE=/tmp/reencoded_hevc.mp4

nvv4l2decoder + nvv4l2h265enc

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=$FILE ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! nvv4l2decoder ! \
  nvvidconv ! "video/x-raw(memory:NVMM)" ! nvv4l2h265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! \
  filesink location=$OUTFILE -e

nvv4l2decoder + nvh265enc

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=$FILE ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! nvv4l2decoder ! \
  nvvidconv ! video/x-raw ! nvh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$OUTFILE -e

nvh265dec + nvh265enc

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=$FILE ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! nvh265dec ! \
  nvh265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$OUTFILE -e

avdec_h265 + x265enc (CPU-only)

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=$FILE ! qtdemux ! h265parse ! avdec_h265 ! \
  videoconvert ! x265enc ! h265parse ! qtmux ! filesink location=$OUTFILE -e

Plugin Reference Links

• NVIDIA V4L2 plugins (e.g., nvv4l2h265enc, nvv4l2decoder, nvvidconv, nv3dsink): Jetson Linux Multimedia API – GStreamer Plugins
• NVCodec/NVENC plugins (e.g., nvh265enc, nvh265dec, nvautogpuh265enc, nvcudah265enc): GStreamer NVCodec Plugin
• x265enc (CPU): GStreamer x265enc
• avdec_h265 (CPU): GStreamer avdec_h265
• h265parse: GStreamer h265parse
• qtdemux: GStreamer qtdemux
• videoconvert: GStreamer videoconvert