linux-drivers/
drivers/media/platform/nvidia/tegra-vde

NVIDIA Tegra 2/3/4/K1 Video Decoder Engine

The hardware video decoder block built into NVIDIA's early Tegra application processors (Tegra 2, Tegra 3, Tegra 4, and Tegra K1), used in Android tablets, smartphones, and embedded boards like the Jetson TK1 from roughly 2010 through the mid-2010s to accelerate H.264 playback.

keep-annotate conf=0.82 last_sold=2024 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=media category=media-other
82%

recommendation

Worth keeping but flagging as legacy: it serves early-2010s NVIDIA Tegra silicon (Tegra 2, 3, 4, and K1) that NVIDIA stopped selling in January 2024, including the discontinued Jetson TK1 developer kits. Upstream maintenance is still happening — a fix landed as recently as 2025 — so there is an active installed base of older tablets, set-top devices, and Chromebooks that benefit from keeping the code in tree, but it should be documented as targeting end-of-life hardware.

repository signals

9 files
3,230 source lines
29 commits, 5y
+3,329 / −80 lines added / removed, 5y
22 authors, 5y
monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 29 total · active in 18/61 months
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sources

  1. git.kernel.org

    The driver binds to NVIDIA Tegra20, Tegra30, Tegra114, and Tegra124 VDE compatibles, i.e. older Tegra 2/3/4/K1-era decode hardware.

  2. git.kernel.org

    The directory still receives upstream maintenance; a tegra-vde-specific fix landed in 2025.

  3. developer.nvidia.com

    NVIDIA lists Tegra 2, Tegra 3, and Tegra K1 processors as available only through January 2024, and Jetson TK1 developer kits as end-of-life.

  4. en.wikipedia.org

    Tegra 2/3/4/K1 are early-2010s Tegra generations, indicating this driver targets legacy hardware rather than current NVIDIA embedded platforms.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

`exec_command` on local source showed OF matches for tegra20/30/114/124 and module description. `exec_command` git log showed nontrivial tegra-vde maintenance through 2025, so this is not abandoned and I found no removal signal in the limited search budget. URL acquisition: kernel.org tree URL and commit URL by canonical recall from local path/hash; NVIDIA lifecycle page via `web.search/open`; Wikipedia Tegra page via `web.open`. Hardware sales evidence points to processor availability ending in January 2024, so by 2025 this is legacy silicon with some installed-base use only; keep the driver but annotate it as legacy rather than deprecating/removing it.