HW Video Player

Godot 4.5 GDExtension video player using FFmpeg with D3D11VA hardware decoding on Windows.

Current display path:

FFmpeg demux
-> D3D11VA decoder when available
-> av_hwframe_transfer_data to CPU frame
-> sws_scale to RGBA
-> ImageTexture update in Godot

Build

Prerequisites:

• Godot 4.5 compatible godot-cpp checkout
• FFmpeg shared Windows build with headers and import libraries
• Visual Studio C++ toolchain
• SCons

Current FFmpeg version:

ffmpeg 8.1.1-full_build
libavcodec 62
libavformat 62
libavutil 60
libswscale 9
libswresample 6

Example:

cd addons\hw_video_player
scons godot_cpp_path=<path-to-godot-cpp>

Development-only compile-time diagnostics can be enabled explicitly with the SCons boolean option dev_build=yes:

scons godot_cpp_path=<path-to-godot-cpp> dev_build=yes

Runtime FFmpeg DLLs are copied into bin/windows-x86_64 via scripts/copy_ffmpeg_runtime.ps1.

Per-frame and periodic performance logs are only printed when built with dev_build=yes. Use get_perf_text() from script when you need runtime performance data in normal builds.

Usage

Add HWVideoPlayer node to a scene, set source_path to a local video file, then call play().

Common controls:

$HWVideoPlayer.source_path = "res://videos/example.mp4"
$HWVideoPlayer.play()
$HWVideoPlayer.pause()
$HWVideoPlayer.seek(12.5)
$HWVideoPlayer.stop()

Useful properties:

• autoplay: Open and play source_path when the node is ready.
• loop: Restart automatically when playback reaches the end.
• prefer_hardware: Prefer D3D11VA hardware decoding when available.
• keep_aspect: Preserve video aspect ratio when drawing.
• speed_scale: Playback speed multiplier.

Signals:

• started: Emitted after playback successfully starts or resumes.
• paused: Emitted when pause() is called.
• stopped: Emitted when stop() is called.
• finished: Emitted when playback reaches the end and loop is disabled.
• looped: Emitted when playback reaches the end and loop is enabled.
• seeked(seconds): Emitted after an explicit seek(seconds) call.

Signal registration example:

@onready var player: HWVideoPlayer = $HWVideoPlayer

func _ready() -> void:
	player.started.connect(_on_video_started)
	player.paused.connect(_on_video_paused)
	player.stopped.connect(_on_video_stopped)
	player.finished.connect(_on_video_finished)
	player.looped.connect(_on_video_looped)
	player.seeked.connect(_on_video_seeked)

func _on_video_started() -> void:
	print("video started")

func _on_video_paused() -> void:
	print("video paused")

func _on_video_stopped() -> void:
	print("video stopped")

func _on_video_finished() -> void:
	print("video finished")

func _on_video_looped() -> void:
	print("video looped")

func _on_video_seeked(seconds: float) -> void:
	print("video seeked to ", seconds)

Enable the plugin in project.godot:

[editor_plugins]
enabled=PackedStringArray("res://addons/hw_video_player/plugin.cfg")

Git Notes

Do not commit generated SCons/MSVC build files such as *.obj.import; they are ignored by .gitignore.