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4K 60fps Video "Benchmark" for YouTube
- Thread starter Pipo24
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So i run it for 10000 frames on my iMac
Video ID / sCPN
ojU5YZfDW5E / EBB1 AQ13 26AT
Viewport
2560x1440*2
Current / Optimal Res
3840x2160@60 / 3840x2160@60
Volume / Normalized
100% / 100% (content loudness -4.0dB)
Codecs
vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01 (315) / opus (251)
Color
bt709 / bt709
Host
r4---sn-5hnedn7l
Connection Speed
44861 Kbps
Network Activity
0 KB
Buffer Health
20.50 s
Dropped Frames
19/10270
Video ID / sCPN
ojU5YZfDW5E / EBB1 AQ13 26AT
Viewport
2560x1440*2
Current / Optimal Res
3840x2160@60 / 3840x2160@60
Volume / Normalized
100% / 100% (content loudness -4.0dB)
Codecs
vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01 (315) / opus (251)
Color
bt709 / bt709
Host
r4---sn-5hnedn7l
Connection Speed
44861 Kbps
Network Activity
0 KB
Buffer Health
20.50 s
Dropped Frames
19/10270
3/18035
[doublepost=1528084984][/doublepost]Ok, so now you got me playing with resolutions and dropped frames in Chrome (since safari still does not do 4K or above). I basically get very few or 0 dropped frames all the way up to 4K/60fps (full screen), and even 8K/30fps. But I am getting lots of dropped frames at 8k/60fps. Is that normal for my 2017 iMac (please see details in my sig below)?
[doublepost=1528084984][/doublepost]Ok, so now you got me playing with resolutions and dropped frames in Chrome (since safari still does not do 4K or above). I basically get very few or 0 dropped frames all the way up to 4K/60fps (full screen), and even 8K/30fps. But I am getting lots of dropped frames at 8k/60fps. Is that normal for my 2017 iMac (please see details in my sig below)?
Yep That would be normal your graphics aren't up to running 8K smoothly simple as that, you would need the imac pro with vega graphics to do that with a mac.
The best part is that this function will be built into the CPU within three years, or you can pay US$1000 for the video card today.
The reason is that VP9 (The codec that YT uses) is not supported by macOS, so Safari ignores the videos with that codec and if you try to use Chrome or even Bootcamp you will get bad performance as it needs to use Software decoder, instead of the Hardware decoder that intel includes in its 6th and above gen chipsets.
sigh, my mac sucks.
3.5 Ghz i5-4690K, m290x, 2014 imac 5k
no other programs running....
[doublepost=1528256631][/doublepost]I seem to remember, before high sierra came out, that it was possible to play 4k h.265 videos on a haswell with VLC, but an i7 was recommended, as playback would drop frames on an i5.
But then high sierra came out, and quicktime player has no problem playing such a file. Apple's good at optimizing stuff.
3.5 Ghz i5-4690K, m290x, 2014 imac 5k
no other programs running....
[doublepost=1528256631][/doublepost]I seem to remember, before high sierra came out, that it was possible to play 4k h.265 videos on a haswell with VLC, but an i7 was recommended, as playback would drop frames on an i5.
But then high sierra came out, and quicktime player has no problem playing such a file. Apple's good at optimizing stuff.
"4k h.265" is a very vague term. Low complexity low fps 8-bit 4K h.265 HEVC plays fine on lesser machines in software, but high complexity high fps 10-bit 4K h.265 HEVC can bring a Skylake 2015 i7 to its knees.
However High Sierra's QuickTime as well as other applications in High Sierra can do 10-bit 4K h.265 HEVC in hardware on 2017 and later Macs, so that even files that don't play cleanly on a Skylake i7 iMac in High Sierra's QuickTime will play fine for me with under 25% usage on my 2017 12" MacBook Core m3. (Yes, we've already tried it. A 2017 Core m3-7Y32 MacBook easily beats a 2015 Core i7-6700K iMac for this purpose.)
Now all we need is 4K DRM support in macOS, to allow 4K Netflix, Amazon, iTunes streaming on Macs. This would also require 2017 or later 7th generation Intel Macs though.
There is software support for VP9 in Chrome of course, and current iMacs will usually play most 8-bit YouTube VP9 fine in software. Hardware playback is less taxing though, and the latest iMacs have that hardware support, but macOS won't support it.
Presumably it's because it's a turf war. Google controls VP9, and Apple has put its support behind HEVC. That said, things may change when AV1 makes its debut. AV1 is also Google's baby to an extent, but they've gotten Apple on board at least superficially.
Unfortunately, none of our machines have hardware AV1 decode support, and AV1 is considerably more difficult to decode in software than VP9.
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VP9 is supported in MacOS, its just not natively supported by Apple. Keep in mind VP9 is just a video codec and like the dozens upon dozens of other video codec available 3rd party software decoding is required.
The thing that makes this an issue compared to other video codec is Google uses it to encode 4K video in the WebM container for HTML5 and YouTube. Since YouTube is web based and Safari can access it we can easily see the incompatibility.
Why Apple doesn't currently support VP9 isn't exactly known but the reason certainly extends back to Apples HEAVY investment in h264 and VP8. h264 was designed to be a standard and Apple jumped on board with it because not only was it good but hardware decoding/encoding was supported. Conversely VP9 encoding still isn't heavily wide spread (Kaby Lake and newer on computers). Google acquired the company that created VP8 (and earlier versions) as an open source replacement for h264. But h264 already had its foot in the door and too many companies were invested into it. While there are services that use VP9 outside of Youtube however they are few and far between and if it wasn't for YouTube it would just be another obscure video codec.
Can Apple support it in their software capable of playing video? Of course.
Will Apple support VP9 in their software capable of playing videos? Unlikely.
The successor of VP9 is called AV1 and its being developed by the Alliance of Open Media. Members of that alliance include Google, ARM, Netflix, AMD, Intel, nVidia, etc etc and Apple. I think Apple will support it via software and hardware however HEVC will still be their goto.
AV1 seems like a while off. There are no hardware decoders in mainstream machines (which is not a surprise since the 1.0 spec was only published this year), and the streaming companies like Netflix say they won't use it until it's only about 5-10X more computationally intensive to encode vs. VP9. Unfortunately, right now with reference settings, AV1 is 200-700X (!) more computationally intensive to encode.
The other problem is there is not a single mainstream Mac in existence that can software decode high quality 4K 10-bit AV1. Not sure about the iMac Pro, but probably not that either, and definitely not any other Mac currently in production.
In terms of hardware decoding, I suspect the earliest for iOS would probably be something like 2021, since none of the existing ARM chips or the coming 2018 ARM chips from Apple have AV1 hardware decoding. Even if Apple is gung ho on supporting AV1 they basically would have had to only start designing chips for it very recently, meaning chips wouldn't be available with it for about 3 years. And it's probably even longer for Macs running on Intel.
The other problem is there is not a single mainstream Mac in existence that can software decode high quality 4K 10-bit AV1. Not sure about the iMac Pro, but probably not that either, and definitely not any other Mac currently in production.
In terms of hardware decoding, I suspect the earliest for iOS would probably be something like 2021, since none of the existing ARM chips or the coming 2018 ARM chips from Apple have AV1 hardware decoding. Even if Apple is gung ho on supporting AV1 they basically would have had to only start designing chips for it very recently, meaning chips wouldn't be available with it for about 3 years. And it's probably even longer for Macs running on Intel.
What browser are you using?
I think if you use chrome or Firefox it uses VP9 but if you use safari it doesn't use it.
