nvidia hardware codec

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo
Different generations of nvidia each have added internally hw codecs for video and audio in addition to hw rendering optimizations and features
2.The container is made and parsed in software, the contents of the container are then hooked to video/audio hw accel inside
3.http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gt-430-review/4
4.geforce 4 can decode mpeg 4 in hardware
mkv
x264
h264
aac
dts
5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU
6.If VDPAU is supported on card , card can do codec and graphics accel
7.vlc has support for it, vlc has support for sw codec too
8.http://penguindreams.org/blog/nvidias-hardware-h264-1080p-codec-in-linux/