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QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks User's Guide
This User's Guide is aimed at all systems integrators and developers who want to design and build embedded systems using the QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks.
VPU Sharing
The Shared Video and Camera framework allows guests to use the video processing unit (VPU) on the host system to decode video. The framework does so by providing a virtual video device that provides media codec and video control functionality to client guest applications and uses the host system's VPU to do the required codec operations.
vdev virtio-video-decoder
Provide VPU decoder functionality to guests running in hypervisor VMs

QNX Momentics IDE User's Guide
This User's Guide describes version 7.1 of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that's part of the QNX Momentics tool suite.
QNX Software Development Platform
QNX SDP is a cross-compiling and debugging environment, including an IDE and command-line tools, for building binary images and programs for target boards running QNX Neutrino 7.1.
QNX Hypervisor
The QNX Hypervisor allows you to run multiple OSs on a target system so you can separate critical and non-critical functions, support a wide variety of applications, and reduce hardware costs.
QNX Software in the Cloud
QNX Software in the Cloud enables developers to use the QNX software in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (Azure).
QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks User's Guide
This User's Guide is aimed at all systems integrators and developers who want to design and build embedded systems using the QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks.
- QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks Architecture
  The QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks allow you to build systems that share resources such as graphics, audio, and input devices among multiple OSs, while separating the management of critical services and non-critical services to mitigate the effects of faults.
- Audio Sharing
  The Shared Audio framework allows guests to capture and output audio on devices connected to the hypervisor host. It does this by providing an audio virtual device through which guests can start and stop these operations and configure parameters such as sampling rate.
- Camera Sharing
  The Shared Video and Camera framework allows the host and guests to share the same camera.
- Filesystem Sharing
  The Shared Filesystem framework allows guests to access directories on the host through mountpoints of their choosing. The framework does this by providing a virtual filesystem device through which guests can interact with files in shared host directories as though they were local files.
- Graphics Sharing
  Graphics sharing is supported by the Shared GPU and Display framework. This framework supports sharing graphical content between the host and guests, and includes a virtual device, virtual rendering libraries, and other services.
- Input Sharing
  The Shared Input framework allows guests and the hypervisor host to share access to input devices. Specifically, it provides a virtual device that lets guests access input from physical devices connected to the hypervisor host.
- Sensor Sharing
  The Sensor Sharing framework allows guests to read data from sensors connected to the hypervisor host. Sensor support will vary. Presently, the framework allows guests to access Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors on the hypervisor host.
- USB Sharing
  The Shared USB framework allows guest and host applications to share access to USB devices. Specifically, it provides a virtual device that lets guests access USB devices connected to the hypervisor host.
- Virtual Socket
  The Virtual Socket framework provides a simple mechanism for passing data between the host and a guest, or between guests, independently of network protocols.
- VPU Sharing
  The Shared Video and Camera framework allows guests to use the video processing unit (VPU) on the host system to decode video. The framework does so by providing a virtual video device that provides media codec and video control functionality to client guest applications and uses the host system's VPU to do the required codec operations.
  - Framework architecture
    The video framework enables guests running in virtual machines (VMs) to access the VPU in the hypervisor host system.
  - Required components
    To use the video framework in a QNX Hypervisor system, you must add components to your guest and host images, and add the virtio-video-decoder vdev to the guest's VM.
  - vdev virtio-video-decoder
    Provide VPU decoder functionality to guests running in hypervisor VMs
- Integration Support for Android
  The QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks support integrating Android into a QNX Hypervisor system with minimal changes to the Android Operating System. This is possible by supporting common Android OS versions and services, adhering to industry standards for virtualization, and allowing existing components to be reused unmodified. There's also a demonstration system that shows how applications in an Android guest can use the virtualization frameworks.
Typographical Conventions, Support, and Licensing
This section describes the typographical conventions used throughout the documentation and explains how to obtain technical support.

vdev virtio-video-decoder

Provide VPU decoder functionality to guests running in hypervisor VMs

Synopsis

vdev virtio-video-decoder
  [loc addr intr intr]
  [log_level level]

Options

loc addr: Set the base address of the registers. If this option isn't specified, the vdev appears as a PCI device.
intr intr: Specify the guest interrupt signal that is generated for device interrupts. This field is required only when the vdev does not appear as a PCI device; that is, when loc is specified. See Setting the guest interrupt below for more information.
log_level level: Set the level of logging. The logging is accumulative, meaning any messages at this level and more severe levels get logged. The least severe level is 10 and the most severe is 3.
Level 10 represents Debug 6, which is the most verbose debugging level, while 6 represents Debug 1, which is the least verbose debugging level. The default setting is 5, which means informational and more severe messages get logged. Levels 4 and 3 respectively cause warnings and errors to be logged. Currently, values below 3 don't generate any additional message logging, but are reserved for future usage.

Description

(ARM and x86) This vdev provides guests with access to VPU decoder functionality in the hypervisor host. In this release, video decoding (but not encoding) is supported, so guests can play video on the host's displays.

Setting the guest interrupt

If the host is an x86-based platform, or if a PCI server is set up in a guest, you can omit the loc and intr options. In this case, the vdev presents itself to the guest via the PCI bus, with the vendor ID/device ID pair 0x1C05/0x001F, where 0x1C05 is the BlackBerry vendor ID and 0x001F is the device ID for the decoder device. (You can use the VIRTIO_DT_VIDEO_DECODER constant to match the device ID.)

Otherwise, you need to specify these options in the VM configuration file (*.qvmconf) for the guest; the values you specify are passed to the video decoder driver in the guest. For more information, see Common vdev options in the Virtual Device Reference chapter in the QNX Hypervisor User's Guide.

Page updated: March 12, 2026