VDA framework was made obsolete in OS X. Equivalent features are provided in the Video Toolbox framework from OS X 10.8 and later. Firefox only supports 10.9

VDA framework was made obsolete in OS X. Equivalent features are provided in the Video Toolbox framework from OS X 10.8 and later. Firefox only supports 10.9 and later from now on, and no longer uses VDA. Unlike VDA, when you create a decoder, you just get one. You then query if it's a hardware decoder or not, but the behaviour is fundamentally the same between SW and HW. For some reasons, the VT frame gives us a software decoder most of the time for some users. Until now, I had only ever seen Mac Pro (including 2013 trashcan model) to not provide hardware decoding support. If you attempt to decode a video that is less than 144 pixels high, you always get a software decoder.