Skip to main content

Hardware accelerated encoding

Encoding is the process of converting a sequence of images into a video file.
Besides rendering frames, encoding is one of the two steps required to create a video.

From Remotion v4.0.228, Remotion supports hardware-accelerated encoding in some cases.
Since encoding is platform- and codec-specific, only a few scenarios are supported at the moment.

  • Currently, only macOS is supported (Acceleration using VideoToolbox)
  • ProRes is supported from v4.0.228, H.264 and H.265 are supported from v4.0.236

Enable hardware accelerated encoding​

By default, hardware acceleration is "disabled".
You can set the hardwareAcceleration option to "if-possible" to enable hardware acceleration if it is available.
If you want the render to fail if hardware acceleration is not possible, set the option to "required".

In SSR APIs​

Use the hardwareAcceleration option in the renderMedia() function.

tsx
await renderMedia({
  composition,
  serveUrl,
  codec: 'prores',
  outputLocation,
  inputProps,
  hardwareAcceleration: 'if-possible',
});
tsx
await renderMedia({
  composition,
  serveUrl,
  codec: 'prores',
  outputLocation,
  inputProps,
  hardwareAcceleration: 'if-possible',
});

In the CLI​

Use the --hardware-acceleration option in the npx remotion studio command.

bash
npx remotion render MyComp --codec prores --hardware-acceleration if-possible
bash
npx remotion render MyComp --codec prores --hardware-acceleration if-possible

In the Studio​

In the Remotion Studio, you can set the hardware acceleration option in the "Advanced" tab when rendering a video.

With the config file​

You can set the setHardwareAcceleration() option in the config file.

ts
import {Config} from '@remotion/cli/config';
 
Config.setHardwareAcceleration('if-possible');
ts
import {Config} from '@remotion/cli/config';
 
Config.setHardwareAcceleration('if-possible');

In Remotion Lambda and Cloud Run​

These options are not supported in Remotion Lambda and Cloud Run, because those cloud services do not support hardware acceleration.

File size​

Note that the file size is significantly larger by default when using hardware acceleration, likely because less compression is applied.
We recommend that you use the --video-bitrate flag to control the file size.

We find that --video-bitrate=8M achieves a similar file size than software encoding when exporting a H.264 Full HD video.

Tell if hardware acceleration is being used​

Run the render with verbose logging. If the render is using hardware acceleration, you will see a log message like this:

Encoder: prores_videotoolbox, hardware accelerated: true
Encoder: prores_videotoolbox, hardware accelerated: true

Don't rely on the exact wording of the log message to determine if hardware acceleration is being used.

See also​