Canonical and Intel have partnered to build a version of the Chromium browser that enables hardware accelerated video decoding and encoding. This should result in improved performance and extend the battery life for Kaby Lake (7th Gen) and newer platforms, when using VP8, VP9, and H.264 codecs [1].
To try this version, you will need to switch Chromium to the hwacc branch.
To install hardware accelerated Chromium:
snap install chromium --channel=latest/candidate/hwacc
To switch from a previous installation:
snap refresh chromium --channel=latest/candidate/hwacc
To go back to the stable channel:
snap refresh chromium --channel=latest/stable
Alternatively, you can have both versions installed and running in parallel.
Let us know if you notice the improvements, how you are testing, and if you find any problems.
For reporting any specific issues, you can also use the bug tracker.
Thank you!
[1] https://github.com/intel/media-driver#decodingencoding-features