HEVC Support

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

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.

If they present that they are building in HEVC support and they features GPUs which can decode it...that's their legal obligation.

Remember....very important...people who blindly supported Apple's terrible decisions and backwardness is the reason macOS fell so badly behind. They thought their customers were sheep and will buy anything.
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It seem very hidden, but the direct link I got: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/p/hevc-video-extension/9n4wgh0z6vhq

This time the link loaded but said I have to be part of the insider programme. But since HEVC works perfect I don't need that ;l)

 

[EugW]

If they present that they are building in HEVC support and they features GPUs which can decode it...that's their legal obligation.

???

Before June, the only time I remember them officially mentioning HEVC was with the iPhone 6, and only with FaceTime. Nothing on the computer side. Hell, Sierra in 2017 still has no official HEVC support at all. In fact, some people started to wonder if Apple had simply abandoned HEVC because the licensing rules were so draconian.

Their official announcement for High Sierra does not reference ANY third party GPUs and I don't think they have ever even alluded to that. It was basically nothing, and then BAM, they're supporting it, but only 6th gen Intel for 8-bit, and 7th gen Intel for 8-bit and 10-bit, as well as A9 on the iOS side.

IOW, they never ever promised anything regarding AMD GPU support for HEVC decoding. The subject was never even mentioned.

 

[Superhai]

Remember....very important...people who blindly supported Apple's terrible decisions and backwardness is the reason macOS fell so badly behind.

I have yet to see any legal system that punishes companies for making poor choices as long as they honor their promises and agreements to customers, and follow other applicable laws and regulations.
In general stupidity is not illegal. How the implemented HEVC support is bad or good for Apple is yet to be seen.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

???

Before June, the only time I remember them officially mentioning HEVC

Why are you looking before June? You do that kind of thing and they will screw you over every year for life.

We are talking about contemporary hardware and contemporary software feature. This is how it works if nobody is cheating around.

For that matter AMD or Microsoft never made a big presentation about HEVC like Apple did. Yet my PC is playing back.

 

[EugW]

Why are you looking before June? You do that kind of thing and they will screw you over every year for life.

We are talking about contemporary hardware and contemporary software feature. This is how it works if nobody is cheating around.

Because Apple has a long history of only supporting what they want to support. If they don't outright say they are going to support something, you may never get that support, regardless of what hardware you have.

And then in June, they announced what they will support. So if you're buying June, you know what to buy if you want those features.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Because Apple has a long history of only supporting what they want to support.

And they got criticised for a long time for being backwards, closed minded and falling behind Windows. This year they signalled several times that they accept the criticism and will modernise the OS. That meant playing a lead with HEVC, improving Metal, attracting more gamers, developing VR, supporting eGPU, and reintroducing the modular tower Mac.

You see now? If we get all the above but then a big FU for HEVC decode on GPU it would be a real insult to Mac users. We're being sold this idea that finally Apple is going to be serious about graphics again. Let's see it happen. Otherwise it's another year of ******** hype and products with planned obsolescence built in.

That's all I need to say now my video made the point more obviously.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

If you don't have a Skylake CPU, then it's software decoding, and this will choke your cpu heavily on anything more then 1080p on a low bitrate.
If you can't play jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv from http://jell.yfish.us/, then you don't have hardware support available / enabled.
.

The first part of the video had some artefacts and it was choppy but the second part was quite smooth with no artefacts.

macOS 10.12.5
VLC 2.2.6
15" Macbook Pro, Late 2016 [Skylake, Radeon Pro]

 

[hawkeye_a]

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.

On one hand, the support on the intel chipset and integrated GPU dictates what is possible in most Macs (at least MacBookPros without dedicated GPUs). So it's difficult to fault Apple here.

On the other hand, recent CPUs (last couple of years).... should be more than capable of handling a software decode.

 

[Superhai]

On the other hand, recent CPUs (last couple of years).... should be more than capable of handling a software decode.

Yes, 4k with not too extreme compression will flow even for a few years old CPU, but when it get more complex and 10 bit it will be more challenging.

 

[Eligos]

How is scrubbing at higher bit rates? This is vital for end users to get real time feedback and no freezing.
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Ok I just tried this. My results on 2016 15" MBP Radeon 455.

Sierra
QuickTime : no support obviously
VLC : Frozen video, mostly just a black screen with sound.

High Sierra
QuickTime : Tried with and without Automatic graphics switching. Video opens, too many drop frames and attempts to recache. Useless from any point of view.
VLC : Same as Sierra, doesn't rely on system driver improvements

So no. H265 on latest hardware still not there.

I downloaded the 4K file also and I tried it in VLC and QuickTime and it is a waste of time. But, with MPV, it's watchable and just dropping a few frames, my CPU is pegged at 800%.

https://mpv.io/

 

[EugW]

I used to have a Cube (still have, upgraded to a 7447A 1.8GHz G4 and a Core Graphics compatible graphics card, plus an ATA66 SSD), although is too old for any real world use now anyway, but hey, it's been 17 years already.

Heh. I have one of those, although I bought the Cube(s) for cheap after they had been discontinued. No SSD but 1 GB RAM, 1.7 GHz G4 7447A, and a GPU with Quartz Extreme. Used it for years as a VPN machine.

Here is my Mac retirement home:

As you can see, I tend not to sell off my old equipment. I tend to use it until it dies or until it goes into the retirement home.

But for more modern purchases, I've become more selective and buy more infrequently. I wondered if Apple would take the easy way out and just support Intel chips for HEVC hardware decode, so I waited. I felt the HEVC transition was going to be a huge one, perhaps not as big as the h.264 transition, but big nonetheless, so I didn't want to take too many chances on this feature.

The chance I am taking now though is with Netflix 4K support. I expect Netflix 4K will come to Kaby Lake Macs in 2018, but I wouldn't be 100% surprised if it doesn't, since Apple has not made that promise. However, my prediction is that 10.14 Sierra Extreme (or earlier in 2018 with High Sierra) will bring the DRM required for Netflix 4K, and it will be brought to all machines starting with Kaby Lake. Even though it's due to limitations in Skylake's design, from a marketing standpoint it will still be easier to exclude Skylake in 2018 than it would be in 2017.

I downloaded the 4K file also and I tried it in VLC and QuickTime and it is a waste of time. But, with MPV, it's watchable and just dropping a few frames, my CPU is pegged at 800%.

https://mpv.io/

MPV is decent but is bare bones in terms of features. IINA has the speed of MPV for software HEVC decode, but also has more features.

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

 

[macintoshmac]

I'd still recommend x264: it's still quite efficient, and h264 hardware playback is essentially ubiquitous for devices and media players you can buy off the shelf today.

This. Exactly this. The new codec for mass use needs to gain popularity. 2-3 years and we will have a ripe, mature codec.

 

[hawkeye_a]

I doubt Apple is even required(legally) to update the software(OS/apps/etc) for old Macs. They do so because it's good PR and keeps customers happy, who continue to buy their products.

Are they obligated to support old hardware HEVC decode? No. Would I like it if they did? Yes.

 

[Eligos]

Heh. I have one of those, although I bought the Cube(s) for cheap after they had been discontinued. No SSD but 1 GB RAM, 1.7 GHz G4 7447A, and a GPU with Quartz Extreme. Used it for years as a VPN machine.

Here is my Mac retirement home:

View attachment 707428

As you can see, I tend not to sell off my old equipment. I tend to use it until it dies or until it goes into the retirement home.

But for more modern purchases, I've become more selective and buy more infrequently. I wondered if Apple would take the easy way out and just support Intel chips for HEVC hardware decode, so I waited. I felt the HEVC transition was going to be a huge one, perhaps not as big as the h.264 transition, but big nonetheless, so I didn't want to take too many chances on this feature.

The chance I am taking now though is with Netflix 4K support. I expect Netflix 4K will come to Kaby Lake Macs in 2018, but I wouldn't be 100% surprised if it doesn't, since Apple has not made that promise. However, my prediction is that 10.14 Sierra Extreme (or earlier in 2018 with High Sierra) will bring the DRM required for Netflix 4K, and it will be brought to all machines starting with Kaby Lake. Even though it's due to limitations in Skylake's design, from a marketing standpoint it will still be easier to exclude Skylake in 2018 than it would be in 2017.


MPV is decent but is bare bones in terms of features. IINA has the speed of MPV for software HEVC decode, but also has more features.

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

Many thanks for the suggestion of using https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/ instead of MPV what a great player and feature rich!

 

[Hockeyshark]

I picked up my 2017 MacBook Pro with the bigger config (2.9 GHz, Radeon Pro 560) two days ago. Thus its Kaby Lake and should allow hardware decode of 10 bit HEVCs. My goal is to use it to watch 4k 10 bit mkv videos on my 4K HDR TV.

I am running on High Sierra Beta 17A291m.

Playing 4k 10 bit .mkvs obviously does not work in Quicktime. I tried the latest nightly build of VLC. It does run 10 bit .mkvs with software decode but it is far from running smoothly with a lot of dropped frames and occasional greying out. I did not manage to make VLC use hardware decode (it is turned on in the VLC prefs pane).

I tried the Sony reference video mentioned above (http://4kmedia.org/sony-bravia-uhd-hdr-4k-demo/), which is 4K 10 bit at a bit rate of 73 MB/s. In VLC it runs choppy, too. I can play it in Quicktime (QT) as it is native .mp4. In QT it runs buttery smooth, scrubbing is a bliss and CPU usage is only around 15 to 20%.

I then tried the Jellyfish video at 4K, 10 bit, 140 mbps (http://jell.yfish.us). As it is .mkv it only runs in VLC, or to be precise VLC can open it but it does not even start running (sound works, picture remains grey).

I used Subler to save (without transcode) the jellyfish .mvk in .m4v. Bam, it runs smoothly in QT, too, without further action needed.

I used Subler to transform another 4k 10 bit .mkv to .m4v, but the resulting file could not be run in QT. I assume that's related to the hev1 to hvc1 issue?! I tried to run the script provided by lukfunk (post #73), but my terminal abilities are insufficient to even start the script. Bummer.

Thus, in a nutshell: The only player that makes use of HEVC Kaby Lake hardware decode in High Sierra Beta seems too be QT, but QT is picky about file formats. In principle, Subler is great to transform a .mkv HEVC to .m4v for QT without reencoding. But that trick does not work for all .mkvs. I did not try the latest Handbrake, as I am looking for a solution without reencoding and Handbrake does not allow pass-thru.

Thus my questions:
1. Is there any way to make the more critical .mkvs work in QT with Subler (or other tool w/o reencoding)?
2. Is there any media player that supports hardware decode of HEVC in High Sierra other than QT?

UPDATE: I tried the IINA software player. It does not do hardcore decode, but the software decode is indeed smoother than VLC. Still not good enough though.

Thanks.

Dave

 

[pedrorito]

Will it be possible to convert my iCloud Photo Library?

 

[EugW]

I wonder if Apple TV will be upgraded to be able to play 4K 8-bit HEVC. It has A9, so it should be able to do it, esp. since iTunes videos tend to be relatively easy to play back in terms of complexity.

This wouldn't be the first time. For example, Apple TV 2 was 720p only for the longest time, and then it got a firmware update to play 1080p (although the HDMI output was 720p only). This was on an Apple A4.

BTW, I am in a bit of a dilemma. My mother-in-law needs a new iPhone. Budget is an issue, so it's been narrowed down to a refurbished iPhone SE or else a refurbished iPhone 6.

iPhone SE: 2 GB RAM, A9, 4" screen
iPhone 6: 1 GB RAM, A8, 4.7" screen

I'm leaning toward the iPhone SE because of the 2 GB RAM and A9, but my wife is adamant her mother should get the one with the bigger screen. She was using the iPhone 5 before until it got water damaged, and personally she doesn't care which screen size.

Considering we send her a lot of Live Photos and occasional videos, and I'm already on the 7 Plus (recording 4K 8-bit HEVC in iOS 11), and my wife already is on the 6s and may be upgrading this year, I suspect there will be a lot of HEVC and HEIF being used, which would play nicer with the SE than the 6.

Which would you choose?

 

[macintoshmac]

BTW, I am in a bit of a dilemma. My mother-in-law needs a new iPhone. ...but my wife is adamant her mother should get the one with the bigger screen.

We're talking mother in law... do not use common sense but go with whatever she or wife wants. Both will be happy. You will be happy.

Is there no way you can get a 6s in budget? That would be really great.

 

[EugW]

We're talking mother in law... do not use common sense but go with whatever she or wife wants. Both will be happy. You will be happy.

Is there no way you can get a 6s in budget? That would be really great.

Thanks, that makes the most sense of course.

We may upgrade the wife's 6s in the fall so my mother-in-law could have that but they don't want to wait. My original suggestion was a temporary 5C until the fall, but that isn't going to work. A refurb 6s now is way out of the budget.

 

[macintoshmac]

Thanks, that makes the most sense of course.

We may upgrade the wife's 6s in the fall so my mother-in-law could have that but they don't want to wait. My original suggestion was a temporary 5C until the fall, but that isn't going to work. A refurb 6s now is way out of the budget.

I guess then get the cheapest possible option today after talking to wife of course.

 

[cmChimera]

Could AMD release their own drivers to enable hardware decoding in GPUs that support it?

 

[cmaier]

If they present that they are building in HEVC support and they features GPUs which can decode it...that's their legal obligation.

Remember....very important...people who blindly supported Apple's terrible decisions and backwardness is the reason macOS fell so badly behind. They thought their customers were sheep and will buy anything.
[doublepost=1499197044][/doublepost]

This time the link loaded but said I have to be part of the insider programme. But since HEVC works perfect I don't need that ;l)

How is that a "legal" obligation? What's your theory? False advertising? Contract? Some other legal theory?

 

[Aquamite]

In Sierra on my MacBook Pro 13" 2011 I can hardly play H.264 4K videos recorded with my iPhone 6s. So I guess this means I won't be able to play HEVC 4K videos neither...

Has anyone here tried to play HEVC 4K videos on a 2011 MacBook Pro running High Sierra anyway?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Installed Windows 10 on the MBP 16 with Skylake and Radeon 455.

Tested every HEVC 10 bit 4K file linked. Windows Media Player played them smooth like butter with real time scrubbing. CPU utilisation less than 4%. The default Radeon drivers Apple supplies for Boot Camp have GPU decoding.

 

[macintoshmac]

Good to hear. Someone should try the same procedure for 2016 MBP 13" with Touch Bar, i5 2.9GHz processors, if they have a copy of Windows on hand.