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

[Sanpete]

How commonly is the format used today? Could be that Apple is not in a hurry yet about it.

@MagicBoy, I see you have (or had) a 2011 with a dead GPU. Have you seen this?

Force 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 with failed AMD GPU to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)

 

[MagicBoy]

Taa for the spot, it's there as a reminder of dark times! Apple replaced the 2011 with a late-2013 nearly three years ago after a number of failed repairs.

 

[jimthing]

Bug or 'desirable feature' it's certainly annoying, OK.

And it would at least be good to have the full technical information, rather than circumstantial gossip ('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.' - lol, wot?!) on why Apple are not doing it, even in the macOS 10.12.4 just released.

Facts not fiction, please.

 

[MagicBoy]

The full technical information is out there, I'm not going to republish here what can be found with a simple google search for an over entitled OP.

How commonly is the file format used? I've only seen it on illegal file sharing sites so far. Give it a few years and it'll replace H.264 for streaming once there's device support. It's very resource intensive to decode in software, as in a fast desktop i3 can't do it at 1080p without dropping frames IME.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Don't need Kabylake if decode is supported on GPU.

My GTX 1070 supports decoding on my overclocked Skylake PC and the Radeon Pro 455 supports decode on my tMBP. The drivers and video player integration just aren't yet good enough on macOS.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

It's not that likely Steve Jobs would have waited for any kind of video standard. He never budged on Blu-ray. In any case, people are likely to figure out a way to handle the new standard if they care.

According to some people with insight into the matter Apple was interested in including blu-ray drives into their machines, but Sony, thinking that blu-ray was going to dominate HD content delivery, were a bit too cocky and decided that they'll only license Apple the necessary patents and tech if Apple embeds DRM for blu-ray right into the OSX kernel. Jobs, being a hard negotiator and the kind of person who'll go with alternative solutions if the first choice has too many downsides, refused to do this and it all went downhill from there.

 

[hawkeye_a]

After thinking about my entertainment and media needs, I reached the conclusion that a set-top box such as the XBoxOneS with its 4K UHD drive and HDR support (as well as other media options) is possibly the cheapest and best option available on the market.

The Mac (all Macs) are far more expensive in comparison, and the likelihood of using the Mac to playback such high-fidelity content (on relatively small screens when on-the-go) is next to nill.

However, I remember ~12 years ago, when Apple got on board with H.264, and I compare it to today where there isnt any enthusiasm from them to incorporate H.265 into their products or to update OpenGL/Vulkan or QuickTime in macOS.... and I really feel disappointed.

 

[dovvee]

This wouldn't be a problem if Apple just let the decoding be on the GPU (for the 15" MBP/AMD GPU).
Runs just fine in Windows, as it's possible there.

 

[jimthing]

Is the decoding done on the CPU then? Why would they do that instead of the GPU?. Presumably the GPU would better suited to such a task. I dunno...

 

[dovvee]

Yes, the decoding is done on the CPU in MacOS.
I can't find a way to get any video app, in MacOS, that allows videos to run on the GPU.

MPC-HC does it just fine in Windows (in Bootcamp).

 

[Maxwill]

the libde265 team released a HEVC production version of the popular VLC media player. The libde265 HEVC enabled release is capable to view HEVC video in 4K Ultra HD resolution at 30 frames per second on a standard Mac. The minimum system requirements for viewing HEVC video in 4K UHD resolution are

• Intel Core i7 with 4 cores, running at 2.3GHz.

The VLC media player with libde265 HEVC video codec enabled is available for download in the current release version 2.1.4 (Intel 64bit) on
https://github.com/strukturag/vlc-2.1/releases/latest

 

[Sanpete]

the libde265 team released a HEVC production version of the popular VLC media player. The libde265 HEVC enabled release is capable to view HEVC video in 4K Ultra HD resolution at 30 frames per second on a standard Mac. The minimum system requirements for viewing HEVC video in 4K UHD resolution are

• Intel Core i7 with 4 cores, running at 2.3GHz.

The VLC media player with libde265 HEVC video codec enabled is available for download in the current release version 2.1.4 (Intel 64bit) on
https://github.com/strukturag/vlc-2.1/releases/latest

Have you tried it?

 

[ManuCH]

The VLC with libde265 doesn't work at all here.

However, I found an app called Cisdem Video Player - https://www.cisdem.com/video-player-mac.html

I was able to play most of the videos from http://www.4ktv.de/testvideos/. It's not perfectly smooth, but at least it works. You might want to give it a try.

 

[dovvee]

The libde265 version is only showing me green pixelated videos for 4k 10bit HEVC videos.

These are the videos I've tested.
http://jell.yfish.us/ jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv
http://www.4ktv.de/testvideos/ Camp (Nature) 4K HDR Demo (Sony) h.265 (HEVC) 10bit

I'm running on 15" 2016 model with 2,9Ghz and AMD 460.

The only player (that I've tried) that's actually showing and playing something (but still stutters) is mpv.

The above videos are smooth and fluid in Bootcamp Windows (MPC-HC).

 

[CestLucas]

Don't blame your MacBook for this. Some of the comments are just way too pathetic. It is that MacOS Sierra does not yet support HEVC 4k 10bit native decoding. If you play the same footage on Windows 10 it is perfectly playable. Well, can't say about the 13inches without the AMD dedicated GPUs. My 15inch with Radeon Pro 460 plays the 140mbps sample jellyfish footage without a hiccup on Windows 10 using Windows Media Player. It runs with some trouble on the highest available 400mbps footage, but still a lot better than in Sierra via VLC. The CPU usage is constantly around 1.5% to 3% with no greater than 5%. 140mbps bit rate is already a little higher than the BD limit 128mbps which will be the standard bit rate for streaming in the future and of course Kaby Lake machines are still only tip of the iceberg so companies won't monetize on such complex format anytime soon. It is still not too late for Apple, or even VLC to support GPU acceleration on 10bit 4k HEVC format or whatever because the hardware is sufficient as it proves on Windows. If you have doubt on this just download the footages to your Bootcamp and try them by yourself.


Last Edit: So IMO a kaby lake cpu is necessary for the 13inches without dedicated GPUs to play 4k 10bit HEVC but if you already got the late 2016 15inch MacBook Pros the chances are that Apple will soon support decoding the HEVC format via the Radeon Pro Graphic Cards so no worries about not being to able to play such format.

Thoughts: The 30 second 128mbps 4k footage is about 500mb so I don't really thing this thing will happen real soon.

BTW it's definitely a joy to watch the amazing 4k footage on the new MacBook Pro's Retina Display.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

Yes, the decoding is done on the CPU in MacOS.
I can't find a way to get any video app, in MacOS, that allows videos to run on the GPU.

MPC-HC does it just fine in Windows (in Bootcamp).

IINA and MPV decodes videos through GPU when supported.

 

[Ries]

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?

Any new GPU has it, any new CPU has it, iPhone had it since iPhone 6, but it is walled off by Apple.

 

[macintoshmac]

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?

The thing is, we might want to use it to output, which is not supported again, so the point is essentially moot. However, I am interested in this: iPhone 4K videos. They are HEVC, but what bit? 8bit or 10bit? Because if they are 10bit, then we would be looking at those on the MBPs all the time, even for "just checking" or might want to stream them out which is, again, not supported (10bitHDR output).

So... I think an Apple TV update is required, or maybe just a fast thumb drive attached to the HDR TV.

 

[EugW]

The thing is, we might want to use it to output, which is not supported again, so the point is essentially moot. However, I am interested in this: iPhone 4K videos. They are HEVC, but what bit? 8bit or 10bit? Because if they are 10bit, then we would be looking at those on the MBPs all the time, even for "just checking" or might want to stream them out which is, again, not supported (10bitHDR output).

So... I think an Apple TV update is required, or maybe just a fast thumb drive attached to the HDR TV.

iPhone HEVC is 8-bit. Well, for the iPhone 7 / 7 Plus at least. Dunno if the iPhone 8 or whatever will get 10-bit.

 

[Aquamite]

iPhone HEVC is 8-bit. Well, for the iPhone 7 / 7 Plus at least.

You mean in iOS 10 with H.264 or in iOS 11 using H.265?

 

[macintoshmac]

iPhone HEVC is 8-bit. Well, for the iPhone 7 / 7 Plus at least. Dunno if the iPhone 8 or whatever will get 10-bit.

You mean in iOS 10 with H.264 or in iOS 11 using H.265?

Fantastic! Please respond to this? If the iPhones are 8 bit, no need for Kaby baby for me. Won't sell off my 2016 then.

 

[jun180]

I had poor playback with VLC in Sierra with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video shot on a DJI Mavic Pro, and H.265 video such as the jellyfish sample linked earlier.

I used a video player called Elmedia Player which plays video back much more smoothly than VLC. Might resolve playback issues for some here.

 

[Finurliig]

The disappointing thing is that a £150 nvidia shieldtv android set top box running Kodi can hardware decode raw 4K bluray hevc, as well as pretty much anything else you can throw at it (4K hevc mkv files), while a £2.1K MacBook Pro 13" can't. You could argue that the screen resolution is sub 4K, and that it's not needed, but it's still amazing that a device this price cant manage many of the 4K files I can easily stream via my shieldtv. I love the MacBook, amazing user experience and browsing platform generally, macOS is fantastic, but seriously disappointing that it struggles with 4K decode. The fault is really with the embedded intel graphics, and I'm sure the 15" with discrete and gpu will manage it no problem.

Nope: they can't. I'm sitting on a 15'' MBP 2016 with radeon pro 460. A large h.265 file (60 Gb) is using 95% of CPU capacity, and the video is still stuttering.
The Radeon 460 has support for 4K/h.265/60 fps video. However, the entire load is sent to the CPU.

Conclusion: seems like the VLC team and others need to update their software to support the newer GPUs?

 

[Aquamite]

Nope: they can't. I'm sitting on a 15'' MBP 2016 with radeon pro 460. A large h.265 file (60 Gb) is using 95% of CPU capacity, and the video is still stuttering.
The Radeon 460 has support for 4K/h.265/60 fps video. However, the entire load is sent to the CPU.

Conclusion: seems like the VLC team and others need to update their software to support the newer GPUs?

Why don't you use QuickTime Player?

 

[Finurliig]

Why don't you use QuickTime Player?

QT cant play the .MKV format -the most common format for the video files I download. I usually stick with supreme player or VLC - they can handle almost anything.