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MBP TB can't play 4K h.265 files :(

I'll add to it --

Can I find older TV shows in 4K h.260-whatever? Does it really matter if I'm streaming something like Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee? Where am I going to buy a blu-ray of the Super Bowl while the game is being played?

Niche market.

I don't know why you'd waste your time trying to watch such super-mega-high-ultra-definition content on a screen less than sixty inches wide and with less than five hundred watts of surround sound.
 
hawkeye_a said:
Just a thought to those of you who are disappointed....

What are the chances you would actually watch a 4K 10-bit h265 video on your Skylake MBP?
Click to expand...

Many pros (and amateurs) film in 8k and 4K 10bit. H.265 is a huge file size saver.
 
BarracksSi said:
I'll add to it --

Can I find older TV shows in 4K h.260-whatever? Does it really matter if I'm streaming something like Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee? Where am I going to buy a blu-ray of the Super Bowl while the game is being played?

Niche market.

I don't know why you'd waste your time trying to watch such super-mega-high-ultra-definition content on a screen less than sixty inches wide and with less than five hundred watts of surround sound.
Click to expand...

Youtube launched HDR, several netflix series are in HDR, several amazon series are in HDR, several movies are available in HDR and that is just what is available right now. It the next gen video format and it will soon be everywhere and you are stuck on the VHS side.

Also everything streaming has been h264 and VP8, now it going to change to h265 and VP9 and you are stuck with outdated technology. You bought the MPEG2 TV just before everyone shifted to broadcasting in MPEG4.
 
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BarracksSi said:
I'll add to it --

Can I find older TV shows in 4K h.260-whatever? Does it really matter if I'm streaming something like Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee? Where am I going to buy a blu-ray of the Super Bowl while the game is being played?

Niche market.

I don't know why you'd waste your time trying to watch such super-mega-high-ultra-definition content on a screen less than sixty inches wide and with less than five hundred watts of surround sound.
Click to expand...

Because quality not convenience matter more to some people. It's not a waste of time, if one wants to watch a movie with the best image quality and sound availible. But seeing as how it doesn't matter as much to some people(like you), i'm glad you have a convenient alternative.

I do agree it is a "niche market", most people have much lower standards, and that's fine. That's why as far as popularity iTunes>CDs>Records (and the quality comparison is Records>CDs>iTunes). More people also use Windows and Android over Mac and iOS.

Another reason, the "content"(movie/album) will outlast/outlive the technology.

This isn't a popularity contest (to me anyway).

Cheers
 
high3r said:
How on earth it wouldn't matter? Have you compared for e.g. The Revenant bluray vs uhd bluray versions. The difference is day and night. 10-bit does indeed matter as the wide color gamut is quite striking in the uhd version as well as HDR. Atleast watch a few on a HDR TV before making such claims.
Click to expand...

You're talking about 1080p vs 4K. That's a huge difference. But as a content creator, I get it - more is better. We all want deeper blacks and better dynamic range but at the same time, it is so far from mainstream at the moment that it's understandable that these notebooks aren't geared for that type of output or decoding. The software isn't there, the distribution isn't quite there, and barely anyone has these sets. It's not surprising at all that Apple didn't end up waiting because of this. Apple's 2016 Apple TV is 1080p only - they've never been into the supporting the bleeding edge of media formats until they're mature.

I'm a career cinematographer / director in LA and nobody is asking for their commercial, music video, or short film to be mastered in 10-bit or really even 4K for that matter. We almost always shoot 4K or higher for the benefit of downsampling and post-cropping, but we've only been asked to deliver a 4K master once out of hundreds of jobs. I am aware that this is different on the filmmaking / narrative TV world, but even The Grand Tour, the highest budget show in the land, struggled with a 4K acquisition-to-delivery setup that was mandated by Amazon if you listen to interviews that Wilman did. If they had it their way, they'd produce a beautiful 1080 master and no one would have complained. We're just not fully there yet - and the fact that you have to test this with random experimental clips of jellyfish further proves that.
 
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fs454 said:
We're just not fully there yet - and the fact that you have to test this with random experimental clips of jellyfish further proves that.
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Yup.

Just last year, I had a friend ask about what 4K TV to get, and I offered the idea that no internet provider or streaming video vendor is ready with big enough pipes to stream 4K anyway. This is totally disregarding the competing formats and DRM, too.

Meanwhile, here on MR, we've got people throwing fits about 10-bit HDR video (and why they're not whining about 8K video already, I don't know). 99% of everyone else on the planet is going, "WTF is this guy going on about?.."
 
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BarracksSi said:
Yup.

Just last year, I had a friend ask about what 4K TV to get, and I offered the idea that no internet provider or streaming video vendor is ready with big enough pipes to stream 4K anyway. This is totally disregarding the competing formats and DRM, too.

Meanwhile, here on MR, we've got people throwing fits about 10-bit HDR video (and why they're not whining about 8K video already, I don't know). 99% of everyone else on the planet is going, "WTF is this guy going on about?.."
Click to expand...

As of late last year, a consumer could purchase a UHD 4k TV, an XBox One S and 4K BluRays off Amazon(or elsewhere) and not have to worry about bandwidth/quality/streaming issues (Thats it they want to watch said conent in the highest quality delivered to the home).

And no, I do not use a full frame film camera for photos nor a i record home movies using the 70mm format. Cost (and size of 70mm cameras and film) being the primary impediment.

That does not mean that when filmmakers/photographers whose work I enjoy/like/patronize do use such formats, I consume their work in the lowest quality possible in the name of convenience. If a filmmaker I like makes a film using 70mm, I actually go to a theater which has projectors that support it. Yes, it's niche. And if I enjoy that movie in theater, I would buy a high quality version for watching at home.

Of course with many movies, I wouldnt bother with the highest possible quality. But it's nice to have that option when i want it, instead of always settling for the lowest quality for convenience sake. I have no issue with people making that choice, if thats what a person wants and is willing to make that trade off. What i dont understand is why you have an issue when someone doesnt see that trade off as compelling and chooses to go with a different(higher quality) format.
 
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hawkeye_a said:
As of late last year, a consumer could purchase a UHD 4k TV, an XBox One S and 4K BluRays off Amazon(or elsewhere) ...
Click to expand...

So?

None of these things have anything to do with streaming, cable TV, or even over-the-air broadcasting.
 
BarracksSi said:
So?

None of these things have anything to do with streaming, cable TV, or even over-the-air broadcasting.
Click to expand...

Content is available.

Please note, I got nothing against streaming. if a streaming service pops up, that serves 4K BluRay quality(ie not transcoded to lower bit rates) (or whatever the highest quality available at a certain time), i'd use it in the cases where I want the best quality. Sadly, the 'pipes' wont be able to cope with the bandwidth required for mass distribution.... hence BluRay, 4kBluRay.
 
hawkeye_a said:
Content is available.

Please note, I got nothing against streaming. if a streaming service pops up, that serves 4K BluRay quality(ie not transcoded to lower bit rates) (or whatever the highest quality available at a certain time), i'd use it in the cases where I want the best quality. Sadly, the 'pipes' wont be able to cope with the bandwidth required for mass distribution.... hence BluRay, 4kBluRay.
Click to expand...

…which is why 4K isn't nearly as relevant as TV manufacturers are trying to get everyone to believe.

I have literally zero 4K content available to me over regular distribution channels for regular daily programming. The Today Show isn't in 4K, and the hockey game tonight won't be, either.
 
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I think the point here is not that content is/isn't available via one method of distribution or another.

The point is that some content creators are in need of machines with capabilities to meet higher than average production and (future) distribution methods. They need to deal with 4K (or even 8K!) content, and need machines capable of dealing with it.

However, these people are not going to be using MBP 2016's, but likely higher spec'd non-Mac desktop PC's at this point. Apple may in the near future upgrade current line-ups (MP, iMac especially) to make more possible on the Mac front, but average content makers in the commercial non-narrative video content marketplace are only now beginning to want that capability. So over the next year, this will broaden out in possibility as the technology availability increases and further matures.

As with FHD, TVs come as 4K UHD ready anyway 99% of the time when you buy one today. Technologies don't get released at the same time, so in this case we have new TVs waiting for the digital content delivery methods – just as we had with FHD, in fact!
(One could argue that for regular TV broadcasts, over-the-air/terrestrial broadcasting never got enough 1080p anyway, as there simply isn't enough radio wave spectrum to carry enough channels that way; Freeview in the UK, for example, can only get 13 HD channels in a limited compressed format. Hence why satellite/cable was/is needed for all the mass of channels people might want.)
 
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Well my GH5 should be here within the next few weeks and I would prefer to export my 4K content in .h265 to save (considerable) space.

I am probably going to send my MBP back and then wait the 7 months or so for the Kaby Lake update.
 
Still can't play after 10.12.4 update :(
[doublepost=1490644674][/doublepost]Noticed the VLC dev replied to my thread - he says this is Apple's fault:

"Currently, hardware accelerators on osx do not support h265, so people should complain to Apple.
4K video in h264 already plays absolutely great and fluent with hardware acceleration in the latest developement version of VLC."
Click to expand...

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=137010#p454103

What's going on Apple? A £3,000 should be able to play 4K .265 videos no sweat.
 
I have yet to install the just released 10.12.4, but here are the release notes:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT207536

A few questions:
1) One wonders why Apple are not fully supporting h265? Is there some technical/political reason why not?
2) Is this codec popular enough... apart from better compression, what are the main advantages of using it over h264?
3) Do most 4K TVs support the codec?

I'm not massively 'up' on video codecs.
 
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1 - Are they being lazy? Hardware support for 10bit 265 is coming in Kaby Lake so maybe they think they can just pass the buck?
2 - Yes. It will become the 4K standard because of the massive difference in file size - very important for huge 4K files.
3 - I don't know.

https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/what-i...eo-coding-h-265-and-4k-compression-explained/

It's at least two years old now, so really bad of Apple not to do their bit in supporting it - particularly as many of their customers use their Macs for audio/video production.
 
MagicBoy said:
Can you point me to the part of the spec sheet that states it supports that in hardware? More likely you made a mistaken assumption and are trying to blame Apple for it.

If you'd like to give feedback to Apple here's the link : http://apple.com/feedback
Click to expand...

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect a computer costing £3,000 to play 4K h.265 - more so when you consider this is meant to be a 'pro' computer aimed at audio/video professionals.
 
The cost is irrelevant. H.265 hardware support is in it's infancy. Skylake as used by your tbMBP only has partial support. Your expectations are unrealistic.

Given Apple that feedback yet? ;)
 
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The standard is over two years old. Two. years. old.

Also if you look through the thread you'll see that people using bootcamp to run windows have played 4K 265 files fine - which suggests OS X is the issue, not necessarily the hardware.

MagicBoy said:
Given Apple that feedback yet? ;)
Click to expand...

I've done better than that - I've reported it as a bug and also told them how I disappointed I am with this machine, more so than any other Mac I have ever purchased.

;)
 
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It's not a bug. It's a feature they've not got around to implementing in a half arsed fashion yet because the hardware support is in it's infancy.
 
I consider it a bug - if Apple want to class it as not a bug (and lose brand loyalty) that's up to them, not you.
 
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