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I just upgraded my MacBook to High Sierra GM (and APFS). High Sierra and HEVC are working well. I'm looking forward to upgrading my iMac 2017 with High Sierra too on its internal drive. Up until yesterday, I was only using High Sierra on these machines on an external HD.

It will be good to finally offload my HEVC iPhone videos and HEIF/HEIC photos from my iOS 11 iPhone 7 Plus to my iMac.

BTW, I installed High Sierra on my unsupported 2009 13" MacBook Pro. High Sierra works fine, but not surprisingly, HEVC playback is a total lost cause on that ancient machine.

What am I doing wrong in terms of HEVC? I bought a 2017 MacBook Pro with Kaby Lake and maxed out options (3.1GHZ, 2TB SSD/4GB Video etc) - Cannot get smooth playback in VLC. For some reason I assumed with all the keynote fuss that HEVC files would play natively from quicktime etc? Just tried IINA and still a stutter slide show . I'm on High Sierra GM. (ok_h265_10bit_62Mbit_59fps_LG_Chess_HDR)
 
What am I doing wrong in terms of HEVC? I bought a 2017 MacBook Pro with Kaby Lake and maxed out options (3.1GHZ, 2TB SSD/4GB Video etc) - Cannot get smooth playback in VLC. For some reason I assumed with all the keynote fuss that HEVC files would play natively from quicktime etc? Just tried IINA and still a stutter slide show . I'm on High Sierra GM. (ok_h265_10bit_62Mbit_59fps_LG_Chess_HDR)
Don’t use vlc. You need to use QuickTime, but QuickTime only works with certain versions of HEVC. Look for “hcv1” in the video format description in the inspector. Note that files with the mkv container will not work with QuickTime.
 
h.265 works on older macs too? like 2016 12" macbook/macbook pro or imac 27" late 2015?
 
h.265 works on older macs too? like 2016 12" macbook/macbook pro or imac 27" late 2015?
Yes, but hardware support is dependent on specific Mac hardware:

hevc2.jpg


hevc4.jpg


The problem is though that for high bitrate 4K HDR 10-bit HEVC, no iMac or MacBook Pro can decode it in software cleanly. I tried a demo video from Sony on an iMac Core i7-7700K using software decode alone and it was stuttery. For stuff like this, having hardware decode is necessary. (Luckily the i7-7700K can do it in hardware. I was just testing software decode for interest.)

A 2016 12" MacBook or MacBook Pro and an iMac 27" 2015 will NOT be able to decode that 10-bit HDR 4K HEVC file in hardware. Software decode only, but unfortunately, they are not fast enough to decode it software. For 8-bit 4K they will be fine though.

And just about any recent Mac can decode relatively low bitrate 8-bit 1080p cleanly in software. Even my Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz MacBook can do it, and that thing is a 9 year-old consumer machine.
 
so, next year, i want to buy,hopefully the new imacs and macbooks that comes hopefully,with 8th Intel gen
So with that hardware it will supp 4k HDR 10-bit HEVC with no problems? or i have to wait for CL 2019 ?
 
so, next year, i want to buy,hopefully the new imacs and macbooks that comes hopefully,with 8th Intel gen
So with that hardware it will supp 4k HDR 10-bit HEVC with no problems? or i have to wait for CL 2019 ?
All the 2017 Kaby Lake models (iMac, MacBook Pro, and MacBook, but NOT the MacBook Air) can already do it in hardware. That's what this thread is about after all.

That file can be decoded cleanly on my 2017 MacBook Core m3 with under 25% CPU usage. On my 2017 iMac i5 7600, it can do it with under 10% CPU usage.
 
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 tried the 10-bit 60fps HEVC Sony "Camp" video on 2016 base MBP w/o Touch Bar (Skylake) using IINA, and after I updated to High Sierra. Playback was very choppy. Ideas?


EDIT: I see now. 10-bit hardware decode is only supported via 7th-gen CPU/Kaby Lake.
 
I tried the 10-bit 60fps HEVC Sony "Camp" video on 2016 base MBP w/o Touch Bar (Skylake) using IINA, and after I updated to High Sierra. Playback was very choppy. Ideas?


EDIT: I see now. 10-bit hardware decode is only supported via 7th-gen CPU/Kaby Lake.
Also IINA does not support hardware HEVC decode. Only Quicktime at this time.
 
Also IINA does not support hardware HEVC decode. Only Quicktime at this time.

Good reminder, thanks.

Looks like anyone shooting H.265 with iPhone 8/8 Plus/X is gonna be in for a big surprise when they try to edit those videos in iMovie/FCPX if they don't have Skylake or Kaby Lake machines. Do we know if the newest iPhones capture H.265 at 8-bit, or 10-bit?
 
The new IINA 0.0.14 has added hardware based decoding of 4K HEVC non-QuickTime files (like MKV), on my 2017 MacBook Core m3.

The video for all of the files below play perfectly in IINA 0.0.14. However, for the first two ones (SES Astra files), I get no audio.

http://4ksamples.com/ses-astra-uhd-test-1-2160p-uhdtv/
http://4ksamples.com/ses-astra-uhd-test-2-2160p-uhdtv/
http://4ksamples.com/elysium-2013-2160p-1-minute-sample-footage/
http://4ksamples.com/barcelona-vs-atletico-madrid-4k-football-sample-footage/
 
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vlc 2.8.6 on iOS adds 10-bit HDR HEVC support, so now that 10-bit Sony Camp video plays perfectly on my iPhone 7 Plus.

No such support on vlc for macOS yet though. On macOS it’s vlc 2.2.8.
 
Thanks to you guys I've got introduced to IINA and have been using it on my 2017 iMac ever since.
The results are amazing. Scrubbing through data, jumping to places, starting any media file of any size and compression/etc. It's instant. Going back to VLC feels like going back to an app from 1995 .. so weird! VLC has always had amazing results, but can't keep up with the data we're using. I've just uninstalled it.

thank you MR community
 
While the demo 10-bit HEVC 4K videos are not as smooth for scrubbing, QuickTime scrubbing is uber smooth for the 8-bit HEVC 4K videos that come out of my iPhone.
 
Definitely.

Thank you for reply. I just open my new macbook today and updated software. I will see what is difference after use a bit.
but for now ı can say its loading like 2-3 second when ı open macbook. I used 2016 macbook with el capitan and 2017 macbook pro with sierra before never see loading like that. Hope my mac is enough for that software :) its m3/8gb ram/ 256
 
Thank you for reply. I just open my new macbook today and updated software. I will see what is difference after use a bit.
but for now ı can say its loading like 2-3 second when ı open macbook. I used 2016 macbook with el capitan and 2017 macbook pro with sierra before never see loading like that. Hope my mac is enough for that software :) its m3/8gb ram/ 256

My 2016 m3 works great with high sierra.
 
IINA just launched an update. 0.15 I believe is the version. No outward changes in terms of performance improvement on video issues we have been seeing. But first stable release 1.0 is coming soon.

mpv, the upstream for IINA on the other hand also updated last week, current version is 0.28 (stolendata release / homebrew formulae installed with cask). Brew doesn't have the updated formulae because they rejected mpv's release because it didn't have ffmpeg update of some sort. So all the issues related to hardware decoding still exist.

VLC also updated recently and still it's THE WORST like it was before.

QT would rule ONLY IF it had a couple of media controls.

Peace.
 
Yes, but hardware support is dependent on specific Mac hardware:

The problem is though that for high bitrate 4K HDR 10-bit HEVC, no iMac or MacBook Pro can decode it in software cleanly. I tried a demo video from Sony on an iMac Core i7-7700K using software decode alone and it was stuttery. For stuff like this, having hardware decode is necessary. (Luckily the i7-7700K can do it in hardware. I was just testing software decode for interest.)

A 2016 12" MacBook or MacBook Pro and an iMac 27" 2015 will NOT be able to decode that 10-bit HDR 4K HEVC file in hardware. Software decode only, but unfortunately, they are not fast enough to decode it software. For 8-bit 4K they will be fine though.

And just about any recent Mac can decode relatively low bitrate 8-bit 1080p cleanly in software. Even my Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz MacBook can do it, and that thing is a 9 year-old consumer machine.

So I got the new iMac Pro set up today. Downloaded this 10-bit 4K HDR HEVC "Sony camp" video. It plays back on this machine perfectly smooth, using ~8% CPU. Since this machine has Xeon processors with no Intel Quick Sync Video, I have to assume that Apple has optimized the built-in AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 to support decoding of 10-bit HEVC?
 
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So I got the new iMac Pro set up today. Downloaded this 10-bit 4K HDR HEVC "Sony camp" video. It plays back on this machine perfectly smooth, using ~8% CPU. Since this machine has Xeon processors with no Intel Quick Sync Video, I have to assume that Apple has optimized the built-in AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 to support decoding of 10-bit HEVC?
Probably.

The other possibility was that an A10 Fusion that was also in the iMac Pro, but iFixit's teardown didn't find one. They found a T2 chip, but that's too small to house A10 Fusion. Whether or not T2 still could be handling h.265 decode is anyone's guess, but my guess is no, that's being left up to Vega.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMa...ource=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#s191243

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/14/imac-pro-has-t2-chip-with-secure-boot/
 
Probably.

The other possibility was that an A10 Fusion that was also in the iMac Pro, but iFixit's teardown didn't find one. They found a T2 chip, but that's too small to house A10 Fusion. Whether or not T2 still could be handling h.265 decode is anyone's guess, but my guess is no, that's being left up to Vega.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMa...ource=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#s191243

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/14/imac-pro-has-t2-chip-with-secure-boot/

Yeah, gotta be the Vega handling the HEVC. The real mystery (to me) is that Apple apparently won’t support hardware-based 10-bit HVEC hardware encode/decode with eGPU.
 
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So I got the new iMac Pro set up today. Downloaded this 10-bit 4K HDR HEVC "Sony camp" video. It plays back on this machine perfectly smooth, using ~8% CPU. Since this machine has Xeon processors with no Intel Quick Sync Video, I have to assume that Apple has optimized the built-in AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 to support decoding of 10-bit HEVC?

It's definitely using some kind of hardware decoding, as the CPU would be much higher otherwise (even on an 8 core). It also seems to do hardware ENcode (at least for H264) through compressor... I was getting 2X real time encoding on dual pass H.264. The CPU would have taken a lot longer.

iMac Pro doesn't seem to do hardware encode of HEVC via Vega, since it took 5 hours for the same 15 min clip. But others (BareFeats) see much faster times so maybe I clicked the wrong button.
 
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