4K HEVC 10-bit on the 2017 Core m3 MacBook is gorgeous!

[EugW]

Here is High Sierra's QuickTime with my 1.2 GHz Core m3 MacBook (2017), playing back a very, very high bitrate 10-bit h.265 HEVC file. It's buttery smooth, with ~25% CPU usage. It was as expected, but nonetheless I'm pleased.

The file is here:

http://www.4ktv.de/testvideos/

Note that link has two of the same Sony Camp video, but one is 8-bit and one is 10-bit. The one in the images above that I tested is the 10-bit version, which is much harder to decode, but the MacBook with hardware decoding doesn't break a sweat at around 25% CPU usage. With the 8-bit 79 Mbps version of the video, CPU usage is only around 15-20% total, including the overhead with Activity Monitor and a few other near-idle apps in the background.

Note that my 4.2 GHz Core i7-7700K iMac could not decode this cleanly using software decode in Sierra.

 

[imdog]

Will this improve playback of high-res video within FCP?

 

[EugW]

Will this improve playback of high-res video within FCP?

I don't think Final Cut has been updated yet.

I don't use Final Cut but it would stand to reason that it would make scrubbing through a directly imported HEVC file manageable. Sub-par scrubbing, but manageable. Some may recommend transcoding first, but with this support you wouldn't absolutely have to do that.

Actually I don't even know if Final Cut can import HEVC in the first place at the moment. People transcode to Prores first. And even if it could, it would have to be in High Sierra.

OTOH, even when Final Cut gets updated and made fully compatible with High Sierra, if you didn't have hardware HEVC decoding, then direct import into Final Cut would probably be pointless. It would be a stuttery mess.

---

But like I said, I don't use Final Cut. Those are all guesses on my part from a guy who just edited in iMovie, and also Final Cut Express eons ago when people were still using MPEG2.

Perhaps some of the video editing experts here can comment.

 

[Floris]

new i7 2017 27" 5k iMac with 1tb ssd, and 8gb 580 card .. couldn't play 10bit at all (of course), vlc just gave me blocky grey screen with useless visuals. tried the 1gb camp video with hdr 10bit. at 4k

http://imgur.com/a/gPhZx

 

[EugW]

new i7 2017 27" 5k iMac with 1tb ssd, and 8gb 580 card .. couldn't play 10bit at all (of course), vlc just gave me blocky grey screen with useless visuals. tried the 1gb camp video with hdr 10bit. at 4k

Don't use vlc. Its 4K HEVC support isn't very good at all.

Use IINA. On the i7 that 10-bit Sony Camp video will play fairly well, but with some stutters, and your CPU will be maxed out with temperatures heading up past 90C, and your fan will eventually go to 2700 rpm.

https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/

OTOH, once you install High Sierra, you will be able to play that file on your 4.2 GHz Kaby Lake iMac with less than 10% CPU usage.

 

[EugW]

vlc will pay back simpler HEVC files, bit is less efficient and totally useless for 4k 10-bit. IINA is so much better.

 

[EugW]

I'm here using our old kitchen recipe machine, which is a 2008 MacBook 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo. With the computer in my lap and just surfing MacRumors, the fan sometimes will speed up to moderate speeds, which is annoyingly audible.

It's so great to be able to use the 2017 MacBook anywhere with no fan noise, including now with HEVC playback. For now, I mainly need just 8-bit 4K HEVC support, which is the format which my iOS 11 iPhone 7 Plus puts out, but having the 10-bit support is really nice nonetheless. The new hardware HEVC codec support is not quite an epiphany, but it's almost exciting as when I got my 2009 MacBook Pro with hardware h.264 decode support. And we don't know what will happen with the iPhone 8 or 8s. Maybe one of them will get 10-bit 4K HEVC video recording. If they do, these 2017 Kaby Lake Macs will be ready.

 

[EugW]

HEVC 10-bit 4K files import fine into Photos in High Sierra, although the thumbnail I got for it was blank.

Playback is perfect within Photos, and so is transcoding for video export. CPU usage is low on the Core m3.

You can scrub through the 4K HEVC video within Photos, but the scrubbing is jerky for high bitrate 10-bit 4K HEVC. This is contrast to 1080p or 4K h.264 video where scrubbing is super fast.

 

[Floris]

I am indeed getting much better performance on the other player over vlc. VLC never failed me, until hevc The other stuff works fine, its just when you ask the most of it that it falls apart.
It is intensive for the machine, but it works fine and scrubbing through files is not as smooth as normal really high quality videos, but it certainly isn't bad. Even a lot better than other systems ive been on.

 

[827538]

I was hoping Apple would start pushing HDR Netflix/Amazon support on all their devices. Do you think we will ever see that?

 

[Floris]

I was hoping Apple would start pushing HDR Netflix/Amazon support on all their devices. Do you think we will ever see that?

When the movie industry stops caring about DRM ..
you can't watch netflix 4k on a imac with 5k monitor, because there's no drm protection. you get normal HD and you can go fullscreen with it ;/

as far as i know

 

[EugW]

I was hoping Apple would start pushing HDR Netflix/Amazon support on all their devices. Do you think we will ever see that?

When the movie industry stops caring about DRM ..
you can't watch netflix 4k on a imac with 5k monitor, because there's no drm protection. you get normal HD and you can go fullscreen with it ;/

as far as i know

It would depend on Apple implementing the appropriate DRM support. That is now possible actually, with Kaby Lake Macs (2017), and playback would need Netflix to write the software. So I’m guessing 2018. I foresee it getting included in late High Sierra 10.13 or else in 10.14, with Apple saying it supports the new 2018 Macs and the older 2017 Kaby Lake Macs so as not to piss people off too much. By that time, the Skylake Macs (which can't support the DRM required by Netflix for 4K HDR anyway) will be two years old.

 

[Floris]

It would depend on Apple implementing the appropriate DRM support. That is now possible actually, with Kaby Lake Macs (2017), and playback would need Netflix to write the software. So I’m guessing 2018. I foresee it getting included in late High Sierra 10.13 or else in 10.14, with Apple saying it supports the new 2018 Macs and the older 2017 Kaby Lake Macs so as not to piss people off too much. By that time, the Skylake Macs (which can't support the DRM required by Netflix for 4K HDR anyway) will be two years old.

`It's the only reason I don't pay for the biggest netflix account, because any device i watch 4k on, doesn't have the drm for netflix to actually give me 4k. Not gonna pay for something that i can't even use of course.

 

[827538]

Well I hope this changes and I hope the new iPhones support HDR Netflix. It shouldn't be hard to support HDR10, HLG and perhaps strike a deal with Dolby for Dolby Vision. Apple would really have a killer feature in their devices if they did this.

 

[EugW]

Uh oh.

I tried the 120 Mbps 8-bit and 10-bit Jellyfish files in High Sierra with QuickTime:

http://jell.yfish.us

They are in mkv which QuickTime doesn't understand, so I used Subler to convert them to m4v. Unfortunately, the MacBook Core m3 cannot play them cleanly even with hardware acceleration in QuickTime. Some stutters. I don't know if it's a problem with the file type, or if it's the profile, or the bit rate (120 Mbps).

I'm wondering if a Core i5 MacBook or a Core i7 MacBook could play them cleanly. The GPU speeds of the various MacBook models are:

Core m3: 300 MHz, with boost up to 900 MHz
Core i5: 300 MHz, with boost up to 950 MHz
Core i7: 300 MHz, with boost up to 1050 MHz

Could anyone with the Core i7 MacBook try this in QuickTime in High Sierra? I'm wondering if the higher boost speed for the GPU would be enough to handle this, or if something else is the issue.

I'm thinking it's the GPU, because the Core m3's CPU utilization is never very high. As mentioned before the 76 Mbps 10-bit 4K Sony nature file works perfectly. Note though that was a native mp4 file, not an mkv converted to m4v like the Jellyfish files.

 

[EugW]

Uh oh.

I tried the 120 Mbps 8-bit and 10-bit Jellyfish files in High Sierra with QuickTime:

http://jell.yfish.us

They are in mkv which QuickTime doesn't understand, so I used Subler to convert them to m4v. Unfortunately, the MacBook Core m3 cannot play them cleanly even with hardware acceleration in QuickTime. Some stutters. I don't know if it's a problem with the file type, or if it's the profile, or the bit rate (120 Mbps).

I'm wondering if a Core i5 MacBook or a Core i7 MacBook could play them cleanly. The GPU speeds of the various MacBook models are:

Core m3: 300 MHz, with boost up to 900 MHz
Core i5: 300 MHz, with boost up to 950 MHz
Core i7: 300 MHz, with boost up to 1050 MHz

Could anyone with the Core i7 MacBook try this in QuickTime in High Sierra? I'm wondering if the higher boost speed for the GPU would be enough to handle this, or if something else is the issue.

I'm thinking it's the GPU, because the Core m3's CPU utilization is never very high. As mentioned before the 76 Mbps 10-bit 4K Sony nature file works perfectly. Note though that was a native mp4 file, not an mkv converted to m4v like the Jellyfish files.

Interesting. I re-encoded the 120 Mbps 10-bit HEVC jellyfish video using handbrake from the original mkv to an mp4 file using the Roku 4K preset, and and the resultant HEVC file was only 18.25 Mbps. However, I still get the same stutters in the same places. So it must be something with the way the file was encoded.

 

[EugW]

I just tried this Sony MP4 10-bit 4k 2160p60 HEVC file, and it works perfectly on this Core m3 MacBook in High Sierra with QuickTime, natively. No stuttering at all, and CPU usage is low.

http://4kmedia.org/sony-bravia-uhd-hdr-4k-demo/

Sony Bravia OLED promotional video, in Ultra-HD HDR (HDR10), for Sony 4K OLED TVs.

Video Info:
Resolution : 3840 x 2160
File size : 724 MB
Duration : 00:01:23
Format : MP4
Codec : HEVC
Overall bit rate : 73 Mb/s
Bit depth : 10 bits
Frame rate : 60 fps

 

[EugW]

This is what the video playback looks like. I did a screen capture video of the playback while multitasking. Note that the video looks jerky at times in this screen capture video, but that's just because of the screen capture process. The HEVC video playback was smooth on my machine, but it was also recording a 2560x1600 screen capture at the same time, in the same program (QuickTime). Also, the CPU usage is higher than usual, again because of the simultaneous screen capture.

 

[EugW]

So I tried these same files on my iMac Core i7 7600 (2017) in High Sierra, using QuickTime.

That Mac plays the Jellyfish 120 Mbps 10-bit HEVC file better, but there also were two spots with very brief and slight stutter. However, the re-encoded h.264 file played better.

In contrast, other HEVC files played absolutely perfectly.

Hmmm... So it may be a combination of the file and the machine, but either way, I'm not sure this jellyfish HEVC file is necessarily the most appropriate test for comparing Macs in this context

 

[EugW]

BTW, for software playback, I should mention that the i7-7700K I had briefly could almost play back the Sony Camp 10-bit file cleanly, but the i5-7600 wasn't even close. The i7 was mostly smooth, but with periodic small stutters. The i5 was very jerky.

With hardware playback though, the i5-7600 could play it back cleanly with just 7% total CPU usage. In contrast, the Core m3 MacBook was at about 25% CPU usage (which is still fine of course).

 

[Queen6]

Just for fun - Sony Camp 4K 10Bit

• 2014 13" rMBP - Super slow frame by frame slide show, fans screaming close to take off speed, CPU fully loaded 98C 4th Gen i5 CPU
• 2016 Surface Book - Much better animated slide show, CPU full loaded, fans spooling up again - 6th Gen i7 CPU
• 2017 Huawei MateBook X - Perfect zero stutter, very low CPU utilisation <10% no fans, passively cooled 7th Gen i5 CPU
• Didn't bother to break out the 2015 rMB or 15" MBP (2011 & 2012), as will be same situation with the CPU saturated and temperatures though the roof.

Jelly fish - Just the MateBook X as is my only current 7th Gen CPU system
120 Mbps 4K 10-bit perfect, minimal CPU impact
250 Mbps 4k 10-bit perfect, minimal CPU impact
400 Mbps 4K 10-bit perfect, minimal CPU impact

Safe to say if you want to enjoy or work with h.265 HEVC the 7th Gen Intel CPU's are the clear path. Just to illustrate the playback differences with h.265 HEVC and differing generations of Intel CPU's. No doubts similar 7th Gen full i5/i7 Mac notebooks will easily playback the same media files.

Q-6

 

[EugW]

I'm going to stop using the Jellyfish file. While it's clear that some systems can play it back fine like Queen6's MateBook X, it's proving to be problematic with many other machines.

I just bought a Panasonic DMP-UB400 4K UHD Blu-ray player that also works with USB file playback. I couldn't play back the 120 Mbps 10-bit Jellyfish file. Stutters galore in the first part of the video.

The Sony Camp 4K 10-bit file played with no stutters. There was one glitch with blocking in one specific spot, but otherwise the video played perfectly and smoothly. BTW, the nice part of this is the Panasonic has an HDR to SDR conversion slider to adjust the conversion to SDR. This worked perfectly for the Sony Camp file. However, for some reason it did not work with the Philips Supershop Demo 1 file (Red Bikini), so all the colours looked washed out.

On the Macs with High Sierra, as you know there is no such HDR to SDR conversion adjustment available to us, but the files just look right. Somehow Apple just knows how to convert the files for display on our 8-bit screens correctly. (The iMac 2017 has an 8-bit display but with wide colour gamut, dithering 10-bit to 8-bit. The MacBook 2017 just has an 8-bit display.)

 

[UL2RA]

Don't use vlc. Its 4K HEVC support isn't very good at all.

Use IINA. On the i7 that 10-bit Sony Camp video will play fairly well, but with some stutters, and your CPU will be maxed out with temperatures heading up past 90C, and your fan will eventually go to 2700 rpm.

https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/

OTOH, once you install High Sierra, you will be able to play that file on your 4.2 GHz Kaby Lake iMac with less than 10% CPU usage.

I had no idea this existed. Been using mpv lately. Will definitely check this out.

 

[EugW]

I had no idea this existed. Been using mpv lately. Will definitely check this out.

I just discovered that IINA is based off MPV, with a different front end.

So, it's likely the same decoder engine as MPV, but with much better configuration options.

I guess that explains why MPV and IINA play the same HEVC files equally well.

 

[fireedo]

well, I use i5 / m5 macbook but found out very choppy playback here and high CPU utilization, using IINA player latest build, dunno what is wrong