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HEVC Support
- Thread starter Eliottjames
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Dropbox is a separate app, I don't know if it have its own player or transcode, but it plays more formats than the builtin.
Guys, I posted some thoughts and issues with playing HEVC MKVs under Higher Sierra with hardware decode on my Kaby Lake 2017 MacBook Pro on page 6 of this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/hevc-support.2048628/page-6#post-24776587
Time for some updates:
Since Subler version 1.3.7 muxxing 4K 10bit HEVC .MKVs to .mp4 works like a charm. They play just fine in Quicktime with full hardware decode (CPU usages well below 50% vs 300 to 400% CPU usage with choppy playing with software decode).
But the question remains: It cannot be true that HEVC hardware decode is and will be Quicktime-only! There are just too many limitations in using Quicktime (no DTS audio. for example). Is there any light at the end of the tunnel that VLC, IINA, 5K Player et al. will soon make use of the HEVC hardware decode capabilities of recent Macs?
Update: just downloaded yesterday's nightly build of VLC 3.0 (beta), but still no hardware HEVC decode
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/hevc-support.2048628/page-6#post-24776587
Time for some updates:
Since Subler version 1.3.7 muxxing 4K 10bit HEVC .MKVs to .mp4 works like a charm. They play just fine in Quicktime with full hardware decode (CPU usages well below 50% vs 300 to 400% CPU usage with choppy playing with software decode).
But the question remains: It cannot be true that HEVC hardware decode is and will be Quicktime-only! There are just too many limitations in using Quicktime (no DTS audio. for example). Is there any light at the end of the tunnel that VLC, IINA, 5K Player et al. will soon make use of the HEVC hardware decode capabilities of recent Macs?
Update: just downloaded yesterday's nightly build of VLC 3.0 (beta), but still no hardware HEVC decode
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OMFG.
Tyler, you're a genius.
http://www.suavetech.com/0xed/0xed.html
Downloaded this editor. Replaced all instances of hev1 to hvc1.
Simple.
Works in iTunes. Works on an Apple TV 4K.
No need to download anything.
Code:
vi -b -c "%s/hev1/hvc1/g" -c "wq" /path/to/video
I am a bit amazed by High Sierra. HEVC decode has improved a lot, even in VLC (running 2.2.6) compared to Sierra. I tried a couple of 4K HEVC "rips" (all ~30 Mbps, 23.976 fps, 4K, main 10 profile). VLC sometimes works, but IINA definitely is the best.
I guess even for my Late 2014 iMac 5K, so Haswell based, there's hardware acceleration going on. Officially HEVC hardware decode got introduced in Braswell and Skylake and further refined in Kaby Lake (specially main 10 profile). For Haswell, there is supposed to be "hybrid" decode so the GPU does part of the job. However, according to this:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/59216
10-bits HEVC was not supported.
Not sure what Apple did, but it's working great.
It isn't new. The iOS Dropbox app support the following non-native formats:
- .mkv
- .avi
- .wmv
- .flv
- .asf
Somebody should make an app to do this.
He had said the MKV playback was native to iOS. I said that must be new. It turns out he was using Dropbox which is not native.
Perhaps Nate Wu could provide some code that could edit the hex of multiple files in a directory? I've got 1,000+ files to change from hev1 to hvc1 and there doesn't seem to be any hex editors that can do batch find/replace.
Subler is the app for this. It's free (donations welcomed), and the latest versions add a "force HEVC quicktime compatibility" option. It's been great for re-wrapping files for AppleTV and iOS for years. Now it's even better with HEVC compatibility, and apparently an even better implementation than this quick fix is coming.
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I was referring changing the HEV1 to HCV1. Does Subler do that? I thought it just changed the wrapper.
Again, it depends on the type of file. MKV files won't play in QT, and probably never will. Some MP4 files will, but some won't if they have the wrong encoding flags.
However, the ones that are compatible with QT will even open on my ancient circa 2010 machines (although they won't play well because the computers are too slow and do not have hardware decode).
Yes, Subler will do that. But if you already have an mp4 file, you will have to create a new file and add the tracks to it.
My HEVC .mp4's will not. I know QT is the backend for playing video within iTunes and iTunes will import the video but not playback the hevc mp4s. Oh well, I was so excited for that feature and low and behold, it doesn't work lol.
I have also tried Subler and have it set to force QT compatibility.
Where are your mp4 files from?
If say some random guy on the internet recording TV shows or whatever then there is a good chance they won’t work, since they don’t care about High Sierra that just came out 2 days ago.
If they are from old versions of Handbrake they won’t work but will work from the most recent nightlies.
If they are from iPhones they will work.
It should be noted that h.264 was the exact same way early on.
So far I have been able to play all HEVC mp4 in QT as long as it is not above 3840x2160 and 10 bit. In Subler you need to create a new file, not just open and save.
This doesn't work for files that have been previously muxed with Subler--you have to add the video, audio, subtitle etc track to get it to change the fourCC. If you try to just remux the video (like through the que method for many videos) it uses the existing incorrect fourCC. What's really needed is a drag and drop tool where you can just drop a file (group of files) and it will change to the correct fourCC for quicktime via hex edit.
Okay, thanks for all of the info!
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Ahhhhh okay, thanks! So create a new file, then run through Subler. Got it!