HEVC Support

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

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

Yep this one please

http://4kmedia.org/sony-bravia-uhd-hdr-4k-demo/
[doublepost=1499176184][/doublepost]

You like $$$ video cards. Good for mining I guess. But yeah, software issue. I figured as much, which is why I waited so long to upgrade. Given the example of Netflix 4K on Windows, I suspected Apple might do the same thing. At best they would support AMD/nVidia GPUs at some unknown later date, and at worst they would never support them.

But then this really screws millions of people with 2016 Macs. If their machines can play back 10bit HEVC on Windows with a simply Photos app then it is deeply unfair that they can't play the videos with High Sierra.

If Apple doesn't fix this before High Sierra's release then the consumers have a case for class legal action. Many of them are video editors who have every right to play back a new video standard on their new machines.

 

[EugW]

Yep this one please

http://4kmedia.org/sony-bravia-uhd-hdr-4k-demo/
[doublepost=1499176184][/doublepost]

But then this really screws millions of people with 2016 Macs. If their machines can play back 10bit HEVC on Windows with a simply Photos app then it is deeply unfair that they can't play the videos with High Sierra.

If Apple doesn't fix this before High Sierra's release then the consumers have a case for class legal action. Many of them are video editors who have every right to play back a new video standard on their new machines.

Apple was quite clear about it:

Pre-Skylake Mac: Software HEVC decode.
Skylake Mac: Hardware 8-bit HEVC decode. Software 10-bit HEVC decode. (They did not mention hybrid 10-bit HEVC decode.)
Kaby Lake Mac: Hardware 8-bit and 10-bit HEVC decode.

There was no ambiguity about it at all. No mention of non-Intel GPU decode support.

They'll probably just tell the 2016 owners to convert the video to ProRes or something. I'm not an editor, but my understanding is most will convert to ProRes anyway even if it's an h.264 source, unless they're just pasting together news clips or something.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Apple was quite clear about it:

Pre-Skylake Mac: Software HEVC decode.
Skylake Mac: Hardware 8-bit HEVC decode. Software 10-bit HEVC decode. (They did not mention hybrid 10-bit HEVC decode.)
Kaby Lake Mac: Hardware 8-bit and 10-bit HEVC decode.

There was no ambiguity about it at all.

If that's the case they have the summer to fix the terrible HEVC performance we are seeing on 2016 Skylake Macs.

I have shown above that the horsepower is there on Skylake or GPU playback, even when extremely heavy processes are happening in the background.

Windows 10 is a two years old OS and that Photos is an extremely basic app equivalent to Preview app. If it can do HEVC 10bit 4K while mining then Apple has no excuses.

 

[EugW]

If that's the case they have the summer to fix the terrible HEVC performance we are seeing on 2016 Skylake Macs.

I have shown above that the horsepower is there on Skylake or GPU playback, even when extremely heavy processes are happening in the background.

Windows 10 is a two years old OS and that Photos is an extremely basic app equivalent to Preview app. If it can do HEVC 10bit 4K while mining then Apple has no excuses.

Microsoft just released a new HEVC codec update. Aren't they leveraging the GPU on those machines? If your CPU usage is low, they must be. You're using your RX 580 and GTX 1070, both of which are faster than Apple's fastest GPU and both of which have hardware 10-bit HEVC support.

EDIT:

https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/...-video-player-app-using-microsofts-extension/

Yep, MS's HEVC decoder supports non-Intel GPUs. It's great that MS has done that, but unfortunately, Apple hasn't.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Microsoft just released a new HEVC codec update. Aren't they leveraging the GPU on those machines? If your CPU usage is low, they must be. You're using your RX 580 and GTX 1070, both of which are faster than Apple's fastest GPU and both of which have hardware 10-bit HEVC support.

EDIT:

https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/...-video-player-app-using-microsofts-extension/

Yep, MS's HEVC decoder supports non-Intel GPUs. It's great that MS has done that, but unfortunately, Apple hasn't.

That extension appears to enable hardware support for Kabylake and GPUs but it isn't available in anything but the Italian store, so it looks weird.

My GPUs were heavily mining and the mining rates were unchanged while playing the videos.

It seems that the Skylake CPU were doing the work on both PCs I tested. That explains why the Pentium showed much higher utilisation than the i7. If the GPUs were doing the work then the CPU utilisation should have stayed low on the Pentium. So yes, Skylakes are perfectly capable of software 10bit HEVC.

We will get more reports from Boot Camp users.

 

[EugW]

That extension appears to enable hardware support for Kabylake and GPUs.

My GPUs were heavily mining and the mining rates were unchanged while playing the videos.

It seems that the Skylake CPU were doing the work on both PCs I tested. That explains why the Pentium showed much higher utilisation than the i7. If the GPUs were doing the work then the CPU utilisation should have stayed low on the Pentium. So yes, Skylakes are perfectly capable of software 10bit HEVC. I didn't have the hardware support extension installed.

Skylake can only do hybrid 10-bit HEVC decode. I haven't seen benches, but I would expect the CPU utilization to be noticeably increased, esp. on a low clocked part.

This is not HEVC, but VP9. Not sure the bitrate or bit depth, but in any case I'll post it:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10959...ration-kaby-lake-i7-7700k-i5-7600k-i3-7350k/6

The chips compared are 6500U and 7500U. The 6500U has hybrid 8-bit VP9 decode, and no 10-bit VP9 hardware support. The 7500U has both 8-bit and 10-bit hardware VP9 decode (but not on Macs yet AFAIK).

 

[Antoni Nygaard]

I just tested this on my Skylake MBP 13¨ CPU went 100% fans startet ramping up and the video was stuttering. audio was fine.

 

[EugW]

I just tested this on my Skylake MBP 13¨ CPU went 100% fans startet ramping up and the video was stuttering. audio was fine.

View attachment 707196

What software? You might want to install the MS HEVC codec extension (mentioned above) and use MS's player. And which GPU do you have? I don't know all the MBP configs well enough.

The extension is free, and comes directly from Microsoft.

 

[Antoni Nygaard]

The standard Film and TV. I wanted to download the extension but, it didn't allow me to install it. Seemed like I needed af newer version or the Insider Build to get it. I'm gonna check windows update.

MBP 13¨ tb has the intel Iris Graphics 550

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

The standard Film and TV. I wanted to download the extension but, it didn't allow me to install it. Seemed like I needed af newer version or the Insider Build to get it. I'm gonna check windows update.

MBP 13¨ tb has the intel Iris Graphics 550

That extension looks dodgy and unofficial even though it says Microsoft in it. I can't see it on any country store except for one.

If you have all your Windows updates downloaded then maybe the OS can take advantage of acceleration.

Ideally we need people with Boot Camp on a machine with dGPU. They'll be able to look at the activity monitor to see if the CPU or GPU is doing the decoding. They should also install official Nvidia or AMD drivers so we can check even better.

This will help us understand if Apple needs to optimise the CPU utilisation or implement proper GPU drivers.

 

[EugW]

That extension looks dodgy and unofficial even though it says Microsoft in it. I can't see it on any country store except for one.

? It's on the Microsoft USA store, for example.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/hevc-video-extension/

It only has a 1-star rating, but feel free to ignore it. It's a single review, and it's not a very useful review.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

? It's on the Microsoft USA store, for example.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/hevc-video-extension/

Not in UK though. Does it detect that a Kabylake is present and then show it in the store?

 

[EugW]

Not in UK though. Does it detect that a Kabylake is present and then show it in the store?

No, I went there from my Pentium G840 dual-core (dual-thread).

BTW, I hate this machine so much. My workplace is stuck on 32-bit Win 7 for compatibility reasons, so I'm limited to less than 3 GB. I'm constantly fighting the swap. It's so damn painful. But I digress...

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

No, I went there from my Pentium G840 dual-core (dual-thread).

BTW, I hate this machine so much. My workplace is stuck on 32-bit Win 7 for compatibility reasons, so I'm limited to less than 3 GB. I'm constantly fighting the swap. It's so damn painful. But I digress...

I'm uploading a video of the performance I saw on my PC.

 

[Antoni Nygaard]

I have eGPU I use with the MacBook. I got a NVIDIA 1060 6GB and AMD RX 480 8GB don’t know if that’s gonna work. I won’t be home to try that before Thursday next week

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

I have eGPU I use with the MacBook. I got a NVIDIA 1060 6GB and AMD RX 480 8GB don’t know if that’s gonna work. I won’t be home to try that before Thursday next week

That would be a good test too.

Here is the video playing on my i7 6700K PC.

You can see on the left window the mining process in the background that stresses the GPUs completely.

On the right window there is MSI Afterburner utility to underclock and undervolt the GPUs.

The HVEC video playing on top. At first I show very fluid resizing. Then I show you scrubbing.

At the end I show 4% CPU utilisation (it's only 1% if it is only mining).

So what you see is that the GPUs are completely strained by mining and the CPU is utilised just a little. If the GPUs are decoding the video then they are doing it with very little spare power because they are mining and underclocked. There is more free power in a mobile Radeon GPU than I have spare.

That means just about any Mac with a good CPU and GPU should be able to decode without issue. BUT only if Apple has the honesty and work ethic to develop the drivers properly and responsibly for their customers. It shouldn't be a feature just for Kabylakes. PC users will laugh their asses off if that happens. High Sierra was supposed to bring Mac users to par with them.

 

[Ritsuka]

Decoding is done by an ASIC in the GPU/CPU package. It doesn't utilise the GPU hardware resources at all. GPU are horrible at decoding/encoding video.
[doublepost=1499191910][/doublepost]Apple supports only QuickSync on macOS.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Decoding is done by an ASIC in the GPU/CPU package. It doesn't utilise the GPU hardware resources at all. GPU are horrible at decoding/encoding video.
[doublepost=1499191910][/doublepost]Apple supports only QuickSync on macOS.

I know. My PowerBook G3 Lombard had that kind of ASIC for DVDs.

As you can see in the video I uploaded, the decoder utilised almost nothing resource wise.

Apple has to write the drivers for it because the feature exists in mobile GPUs. Otherwise mass action.

 

[Ritsuka]

Mass action by the two people with an eGPU? I guess you can always fill a radar.

 

[Superhai]

Otherwise mass action.

Why? Apple never promised HEVC support when anyone have bought any product from them.
HEVC hardware decoding is not something that will tax a gpu's main processors as it is a entirely separate die on the chip. On the nvidias HEVC support in hardware was available from GPU's with Purevideo Set F and newer which are the GTX10xx cards and GTX960 and 950 (and 750SE). On the AMD side you find it on newer UVD 6 cards. Your Intel CPU (with GPU) may also have hardware decoding. Whenever full hardware decoding is in effect there should not be any difference in CPU or GPU performance.

Microsoft support only full hardware decoding of HEVC in Windows 10, and only through DXVA (hybrid and software existed in previews of Windows 10, but was later removed. I guess the plugin mentioned above here is similar to that. )

I use MPC-HC with madvr on Windows, which can output with a fairly good HEVC decoder and are able to use hybrid solutions and pure software. I feel a bit let down that my dual GTX980TI does not include hardware support of HEVC.

How Apple's support will unfold is still not clear as they only have added preliminary support in their OS which in a beta state.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Why? Apple never promised HEVC support when anyone have bought any product from them.

Well, that's not true and that's also not the way it works.

When you buy hardware and are aware of the features and capabilities - you have every right as a consumer that those features are honored and that you aren't being manipulated into buying a soon to be obsolete computer. This isn't some nonsense I just invented. It is part of consumer law and has been exercised in courts in several sectors.

If Microsoft and AMD can honor it on the PC side, Apple does have a duty to customers to honour it on macOS. If the hardware is capable, as I have shown, then the OS developers shouldn't pretend that they can't get the hardware to decode a video.

If this happened on the Windows side the furor would be massive, across every tech site, reported in the news.

 

[Superhai]

Not in UK though. Does it detect that a Kabylake is present and then show it in the store?

It is on the GB store, I can even open its page on my Mac although it claim it won't work on my computer which is quite correct.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

It is on the GB store, I can even open its page on my Mac although it claim it won't work on my computer which is quite correct.

When I click a link I get nothing and if I search I only get these five result:

 

[EugW]

Well, that's not true and that's also not the way it works.

When you buy hardware and are aware of the features and capabilities - you have every right as a consumer that those features are honored and that you aren't being manipulated into buying a soon to be obsolete computer. This isn't some nonsense I just invented. It is part of consumer law and has been exercised in courts in several sectors.

If Microsoft and AMD can honor it on the PC side, Apple does have a duty to customers to honour it on macOS. If the hardware is capable, as I have shown, then the OS developers shouldn't pretend that they can't get the hardware to decode a video.

If this happened on the Windows side the furor would be massive, across every tech site, reported in the news.

It should be noted that for the longest time Netflix 4K has only been offered on Kaby Lake on the Windows side. That is changing though.

But in any case I suspected this would happen. Apple does stuff like this often so it shouldn’t really be that surprising. In fact, that’s exactly why I insisted on waiting for Kaby Lake before buying anything.

 

[Superhai]

Well, that's not true and that's also not the way it works.

While it is sensible of Apple to include new codecs and features, they have no legal obligations to do so, unless they sold their product with that as a specification or as a future promise. I am curious how and what sources you have to claim otherwise.
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When I click a link I get nothing and if I search I only get these five result:

It seem very hidden, but the direct link I got: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/p/hevc-video-extension/9n4wgh0z6vhq