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

[EugW]

Did you make sure all your other programs were shutdown? The first time I ran it was stuttered, as I had photoshop and iMovie both open with lots of files, once I shut them it was Buttery smooth. I have no reason to make that up.

In IINA with a near fresh reboot of Sierra, I could not play that 10-bit 4K Sony 76 Mbps HEVC file perfectly cleanly with a 4.2 GHz Core i7-7700K iMac in software. It was mostly smooth, but there were some stutters too. And the fan was on full blast, because the CPU was running at extremely heavy load. The Core i7 can sustain its Turbo Boost at 4.4 GHz on all four cores BTW. So, I'm also skeptical your MacBook Pro handled it perfectly, considering it has way lower performance than that 2017 Core i7 iMac.

Now if somehow that chip managed to do the task with the 76 Mbps HEVC 10-bit Sony nature camp file, then it would still have been at the maximum CPU usage for that machine, which makes multitasking near impossible, battery life terrible, and fan noise a big irritant. Bottom line is you need hardware decode for this. Fortunately, for most people at this point, hardware 8-bit 4K HEVC support will be sufficient most of the time, and Skylake Macs can handle that. And for software playback, most recent Macs will be handle software 1080p HEVC playback well.

 

[DarkSel]

He was probably using High Sierra instead of Sierra for the software decide.

In IINA with a near fresh reboot of Sierra, I could not play that 10-bit 4K Sony 76 Mbps HEVC file perfectly cleanly with a 4.2 GHz Core i7-7700K iMac in software. It was mostly smooth, but there were some stutters too. And the fan was on full blast, because the CPU was running at extremely heavy load. The Core i7 can sustain its Turbo Boost at 4.4 GHz on all four cores BTW. So, I'm also skeptical your MacBook Pro handled it perfectly, considering it has way lower performance than that 2017 Core i7 iMac.

Now if somehow that chip managed to do the task with the 76 Mbps HEVC 10-bit Sony nature camp file, then it would still have been at the maximum CPU usage for that machine, which makes multitasking near impossible, battery life terrible, and fan noise a big irritant. Bottom line is you need hardware decode for this. Fortunately, for most people at this point, hardware 8-bit 4K HEVC support will be sufficient most of the time, and Skylake Macs can handle that. And for software playback, most recent Macs will be handle software 1080p HEVC playback well.

was

 

[EugW]

He was probably using High Sierra instead of Sierra for the software decide.

Nah, my understanding from his post was that he was using a 2016 MacBook Pro to decode the video under 10.12 Sierra.

His 2016 MacBook Pro has no hardware 10-bit HEVC support, and furthermore, Sierra doesn't support hardware HEVC decode anyway.

Note though that site with all the test videos also has 4K h.264 files, so could that have been played by mistake instead? That would be easy for any recent MacBook Pro.

 

[Penlocky]

Whatever that threads says. Intel Says No You can not period unless you have Intel 7th Gen. Let's not misunderstand Playing a 4K YouTube video. This means UHD Premium 4K streaming because no one is gonna fill up their hard drive with a 4K UHD movie. So it has to be streamed.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww.../infographics/how-to-watch-4k-infographic.pdf

Content providers control it they set the rules h.265 needs Intel 7th Gen no way around it its baked in. Don't even try and logic around it by using the GPU.

What's done is done. If Steve Jobs was Alive he would have waited 2 more months and Lauched with

Kaby Lake, DDR4 HDR 4K h.265 support and made a big deal about it. As Intel has.



4K UHD Entertainment: Thanks to the new media engine in all 7th Gen Intel Core processors, it is possible to stream 4K UHD movies and TV shows7 on services such as Netflix* on a computer for the first time. This means that critically acclaimed titles like “The Crown” and “Stranger Things” can be watched at home or on the go in brilliant 4K on your 7th Gen Intel Core computer. With the availability of other premium content providers like Sony* Pictures ULTRA, FandangoNOW* and iQiyi* coming in 2017, your 7thGen-based PC is now a 4K theater.


Steve Jobs would have gone on and on about how Amazing having a Full theater aka Netflix and a MacbookPro are connected to a 55" 4K TV.

Now we get to hang our heads in shame instead.

Bro you seriously think the 15" 2016 GPU support is not an okay thing?
[doublepost=1498850578][/doublepost]

Nah, my understanding from his post was that he was using a 2016 MacBook Pro to decode the video under 10.12 Sierra.

His 2016 MacBook Pro has no hardware 10-bit HEVC support, and furthermore, Sierra doesn't support hardware HEVC decode anyway.

Note though that site with all the test videos also has 4K h.264 files, so could that have been played by mistake instead? That would be easy for any recent MacBook Pro.

I hope they would support 2016 15" GPU decode support in High Sierra and beyond. Otherwise this £3000 investment is trash!

 

[macintoshmac]

The 13" 2016 users are already trashed, I guess, where this specific 4K HDR 10-bit is concerned.

 

[Miltz]

I'm not sure what the big deal is anyway. The display on the MacBook Pro 2016 15" is 8bit and so are most cameras and video cameras. 10bit, will be the future, but by the time camera and video cameras support it widely the computer will be outdated and replaced.

 

[macintoshmac]

I'm not sure what the big deal is anyway. The display on the MacBook Pro 2016 15" is 8bit and so are most cameras and video cameras. 10bit, will be the future, but by the time camera and video cameras support it widely the computer will be outdated and replaced.

For me, the problem is not for 4K video. I am more interested in the keyboard improvements. I am happy with the second gen butterfly as such, but I am NOT happy with keys rrandommlyy behaving like thhiss or like ths wher the strokes don't regster.

I am looking for more feedback regarding the quality and feel of it in the 2017 MBPs, seeing as they are not available in India even in showrooms. May take a month more.

 

[Miltz]

For me, the problem is not for 4K video. I am more interested in the keyboard improvements. I am happy with the second gen butterfly as such, but I am NOT happy with keys rrandommlyy behaving like thhiss or like ths wher the strokes don't regster.

I am looking for more feedback regarding the quality and feel of it in the 2017 MBPs, seeing as they are not available in India even in showrooms. May take a month more.

So far I've had no issues with my 2016 keyboard.

 

[xmonkey]

Do you have a source that 2017 mbp can't output 10 bit color, or explain why it wouldn't? I keep reading conflicting things on this, but thunderbolt 3 apparently has two display port 1.2a streams both of which can support 4k displays at 60 hz 30-bit 4:4:4 color non chroma subsampled. It seems to me that it would work fine but I also came across something about hdr metadata and hdcp 2.2 having trouble over dp 1.2 but I cannot find any additional info on this.

Vesa.org/FAQs/#DisplayPort1.3
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/s...ggzMAE&usg=AFQjCNF5l6mbo4stNcWH_tmYUTf3toQB6g

My 2016 15" MBP works fine with external 10-bit monitors. SysInfo shows it as 10-bit output and a proper test ramp in Photoshop is smooth with no banding. I'm running it through an Elgato TB3 Dock with a DisplayPort connection, monitor is a NEC PA271W. I'm sure the 2017 can do the same.

 

[Seekingshred]

The 13" 2016 users are already trashed, I guess, where this specific 4K HDR 10-bit is concerned.

How about the users going to apple now buying the MBP 15'' which basically comes with a Hashwell for almost 2K?!
HOW ABOUT THAT !

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Try in Windows Boot Camp using the AMD official drivers. Then tell Apple they have to enable GPU decoding. AMD also ready supplies the code to partners and its only a few megabytes.

I can play 4K 10bit HEVC on my Skylake PC perfectly because the GPU is decoding.

This video

http://4kmedia.org/sony-bravia-uhd-hdr-4k-demo/

Perfect playback with smooth resizing and scrubbing while mining is happening in the background...

 

[Seekingshred]

Try in Windows Boot Camp using the AMD official drivers. Then tell Apple they have to enable GPU decoding. AMD also ready supplies the code to partners and its only a few megabytes.

I can play 4K 10bit HEVC on my Skylake PC perfectly because the GPU is decoding.

This video

http://4kmedia.org/sony-bravia-uhd-hdr-4k-demo/

Perfect playback with smooth resizing and scrubbing while mining is happening in the background...

I guess you have a 15'' MBP then ??

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

I guess you have a 15'' MBP then ??

I have two Skylake PCs and a 2016 MBP.

One PC has a crap dual core Skylake Pentium and GTX 1070. It plays back the video above very well if it isn't multitasking.

One PC has a Skylake i7 6700K and RX580. It plays back the video just easy as you see above.

Then my MacBook Pro 2016 with Radeon 455. In High Sierra it plays the video above very badly, sputtering and freezing like a stoned drunkard trying to recite Shakespeare.

Apple needs to stop this long time habit of giving us half baked **** graphics drivers. At WWDC they told us they were going to be serious about graphics. Time to prove it.

 

[Seekingshred]

I have two Skylake PCs and a 2016 MBP.

One PC has a crap dual core Skylake Pentium and GTX 1070. It plays back the video above very well if it isn't multitasking.

One PC has a Skylake i7 6700K and RX580. It plays back the video just easy as you see above.

Then my MacBook Pro 2016 with Radeon 455. In High Sierra it plays the video above very badly, sputtering and freezing like a stoned drunkard trying to recite Shakespeare.

Apple needs to stop this long time habit of giving us half baked **** graphics drivers. At WWDC they told us they were going to be serious about graphics. Time to prove it.

I'm shocked if your MBP tries to mimic Shakespeare but I'm holding my breath for the patch/release of high sierra when everything will work better. Otherwise I got my official answer that Skylake CANNOT play 10bit. period.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

I'm shocked if your MBP tries to mimic Shakespeare but I'm holding my breath for the patch/release of high sierra when everything will work better. Otherwise I got my official answer that Skylake CANNOT play 10bit. period.

If we have a GPU that can decode then CPU doesn't matter. Apple should do the right thing, implement the driver and don't screw users. Many are video editors who need to playback exported video. It makes no sense that we can boot into Windows and have better hardware support.

 

[macintoshmac]

I have two Skylake PCs and a 2016 MBP.

One PC has a crap dual core Skylake Pentium and GTX 1070. It plays back the video above very well if it isn't multitasking.

One PC has a Skylake i7 6700K and RX580. It plays back the video just easy as you see above.

Then my MacBook Pro 2016 with Radeon 455. In High Sierra it plays the video above very badly, sputtering and freezing like a stoned drunkard trying to recite Shakespeare.

Apple needs to stop this long time habit of giving us half baked **** graphics drivers. At WWDC they told us they were going to be serious about graphics. Time to prove it.

Any particular reason you said Skylake Pentium?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Any particular reason you said Skylake Pentium?

Because that system is a Skylake Pentium . Yes Pentiums still exists.

 

[macintoshmac]

Double post. Network issue. Apologies.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Here's the specs for Polaris GPUs. They have an updated UVD that does HEVC decode at highest specs.

http://www.amd.com/en-gb/innovations/software-technologies/radeon-polaris

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Radeon_400_series

This series is based on the fourth generation GCN architecture. It includes new hardware schedulers,[3] a new primitive discard accelerator,[4] a new display controller,[5] and an updated UVD that can decode HEVC at 4K resolutions at 60 frames per second with 10 bits per color channel.[5]

Ars Technica review mentions hardware support to:

https://arstechnica.co.uk/apple/2016/11/macbook-pro-touch-bar-13-15-inch-touch-bar-review/3/

'And the good news is that for those non-gaming applications, these GPUs still give you some neat stuff. You definitely get 10-bit 4K HEVC decoding support, which will be good for 4K HDR content. '

We have a couple of people on this forum who are trying to shut down anyone who says that Polaris GPU encode/decode should exist in macOS graphics drivers when it does exist on other platforms. Let's show them we who spend a lot of money on our Macs will not be silenced. We pay a premium price for those hardware features.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

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.

That's fantastic. Thanks for confirming that the MBP Radeon's decoding is supported on Windows / Bootcamp. Now Apple has to step up and support them properly in High Sierra otherwise we will have to protest and petition.

 

[Zefram]

That's fantastic. Thanks for confirming that the MBP Radeon's decoding is supported on Windows / Bootcamp. Now Apple has to step up and support them properly in High Sierra otherwise we will have to protest and petition.

I agree, but before we can wait to see if Apple support it in High Sierra
But after seeing this following post I'm afraid it's dead for the 10 bit:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/h265-hevc-on-macbook-pro-2016.2048579/page-2#post-24670037

 

[caramelpolice]

Doesn't Skylake at least support partial/hybrid decode for 10-bit? I would think, especially on the quad-core 15" Pros and 2015 Skylake iMacs, that should be enough for smooth playback if Apple bothered implementing it.

 

[EugW]

Doesn't Skylake at least support partial/hybrid decode for 10-bit? I would think, especially on the quad-core 15" Pros and 2015 Skylake iMacs, that should be enough for smooth playback if Apple bothered implementing it.

Yes Skylake has hybrid decode, but Apple doesn't seem to be implementing it. However, from what I understand from some articles around the net on the PC side, hybrid HEVC decode isn't a huge help, so I can understand why Apple isn't bothering with it.

It seems to me the main benefit of hybrid decode on Skylake is to reduce CPU usage for 1080p HEVC material, but for higher bitrate 4K 10-bit HEVC material, it gets overwhelmed.

I was reading this article where a 10-bit 1080p HEVC was playable on a 2.3 GHz i5-6200U completely in software, albeit with 29% CPU usage. With hybrid decode active on the same system, CPU usage was 15%. So, an improvement, but not by that much, and both can play it back fine. So in the end, the result is the same in that both systems can play it back cleanly, but one just uses somewhat less battery.

OTOH, if you were to take say an 80 Mbps 10-bit 4Kp60 HEVC video, the video would likely not play cleanly in either system, so again, no real functional difference.

The big difference is with full 10-bit hardware decode, where you have a system unable to play it back even at 100% CPU in software, but with hardware decode you can play it with just 15% CPU usage.

BTW, I took that Sony 76 Mbps 2160p60 Nature Camp HEVC file and tried it on my 2017 iMac i5-7600 with the IINA player. In Sierra with no hardware decode, the CPU was at 100% and it was really, really jerky. Basically unwatchable. In contrast, with hardware decode in High Sierra with QuickTime, I was using just 7% CPU, and it played back perfectly.

Interestingly though, on a 2017 Core i7-7700K, the video in Sierra was fairly watchable even with just CPU decode. Mostly smooth, but with some stuttering, albeit again at 100% CPU. So, in that context, perhaps hybrid decode could help to smooth it out. So, for this video I'm guessing that maybe the only Mac system where hybrid decode could actually help it play cleanly would be the 2015 4.0 GHz Core i7-6700K. I'm guessing probably the i5 iMacs (which are considerably faster than the i5 MacBook Pros) would still struggle with it even with hybrid decode. Unfortunately, with that i7-7700K, because it is a hot chip and the CPU was at 100%, the fans were at maximum, making video watching totally unpleasant. I suspect the same would be true for the 2015 i7-6700K.

 

[dyn]

The 13" 2016 users are already trashed, I guess, where this specific 4K HDR 10-bit is concerned.

Nope, they are not. There is this thing called eGPU

With an 8-bit display and hardware only being able to decode/encode 8-bit HEVC we are cooked when on the road but not as much as the 15" 2016 peeps, they have 10-bit displays but aren't capable of decoding/encoding 10-bit HEVC either. I wonder how fast those GPUs are going to be with the 10-bit HEVC stuff though because if it is still rather slow and turns the notebook into a jet plane the 2017 peeps are just as cooked as us 2016 peeps

 

[EugW]

Nope, they are not. There is this thing called eGPU

With an 8-bit display and hardware only being able to decode/encode 8-bit HEVC we are cooked when on the road but not as much as the 15" 2016 peeps, they have 10-bit displays but aren't capable of decoding/encoding 10-bit HEVC either. I wonder how fast those GPUs are going to be with the 10-bit HEVC stuff though because if it is still rather slow and turns the notebook into a jet plane the 2017 peeps are just as cooked as us 2016 peeps

eGPU won't help. No support for non-Intel GPUs on Macs, for hardware HEVC decode/encode.