HEVC and the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

[x265_Project]

This could be good...
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12106/hevc-and-the-windows-10-fall-creators-update

[iwod]

I was just about to post this, and you beat me to it. :P

But why the separate Codec Pack and update? Some speculate on hardware and software decoding reason. But i dont think that is true, the scale of Microsoft Windows and Xbox etc means they will have to paid one way or another.

600M Copies of Windows 10 installed and rising. Slightly less then 30% of total Windows market Share.

[nevcairiel]

But why the separate Codec Pack and update?

The overall interpretation seems to be that they want to decouple codecs from the Windows Builds so they can more flexibly deliver updates or even new codecs.

On the store there is also a MPEG2 Video Extension (for free), following the same pattern.

[x265_Project]

What PC manufacturers (OEMs) have often done is to make a codec downloadable, so that the first time you try to use it, your system downloads the necessary codec, and then the OEM will pay the royalty. In this way, they avoid paying royalties on devices where the end-user never needed that codec.

[benwaggoner]

Back in the day, Windows Media Player updates were how new codecs made it to Windows, but those were the proprietary WMV codecs. Starting with IIRC Vista, MPEG-2 was preinstalled and with Win 7 H.264.

It's odd that they wouldn't include base codecs in the build. Microsoft Update could certainly push out updated codecs, and they have been updated in the various service pack releases as well. And auto-download of newer codecs (like AV1) and updated version of existing codecs doesn't preclude having base codecs installed.

This doesn't make much sense to me as either a logistical or financial decision (Microsoft certainly hits the royalty cap in any case). Maybe the decoder just wasn't technically ready in time? The FCU expands HDR functionality quite a lot.

[huhn]

i don't see how this can help the end user at all.
i mean now they have to download the codecs before using them quite annoying.


the HEVC decoder in windows 10 is years old...

[benwaggoner]

i don't see how this can help the end user at all.
i mean now they have to download the codecs before using them quite annoying.

the HEVC decoder in windows 10 is years old...
Windows didn't have an HEVC decoder ten years ago; just some test players in a lab somewhere. Do you mean H.264? I know people who were improving Microsoft's H.264 decoder well past 2007. There has long been a pretty big team in Windows that works on this stuff, and they do a ton of fuzz testing so that malformed codecs don't cause playback issues or (especially!) compromise system security.

IIRC, Windows 10 was the first time an actual Windows HEVC software decoder existed, although it got pulled from the GM release.

[AzraelNewtype]

The post you're replying to says the HEVC decoder in [[[Windows 10]]] is years old, not that the decoder in Windows is 10 years old.

[x265_Project]

i don't see how this can help the end user at all.
i mean now they have to download the codecs before using them quite annoying.

Even if a one-time download is required the first time you try to play back HEVC, it would be beneficial if more Windows 10 PCs supported HEVC.

[hajj_3]

Even if a one-time download is required the first time you try to play back HEVC, it would be beneficial if more Windows 10 PCs supported HEVC.

barely beneficial as there is hardly any consumer hevc content is available. Even transferring videos from iphone 8 to pc auto converts it to h264 before transferring i think i read. I think you can disable that though.

As far as i'm aware the only consumer camera that supports h265 recording is the 3yr old discontinued samsung nx1. The only other consumer content would be a small number of pirated rips on torrent sites and 4k streaming services.

[huhn]

Windows didn't have an HEVC decoder ten years ago; just some test players in a lab somewhere. Do you mean H.264? I know people who were improving Microsoft's H.264 decoder well past 2007. There has long been a pretty big team in Windows that works on this stuff, and they do a ton of fuzz testing so that malformed codecs don't cause playback issues or (especially!) compromise system security.

IIRC, Windows 10 was the first time an actual Windows HEVC software decoder existed, although it got pulled from the GM release.

yes windows 10 was the first version with native HEVC support.
like i said it has this decoder for a long time now. windows 10 is from 2015.

so it was pretty much always supported with some very dumb limitations.

speed was good too the 32 bit version was really fast compared to ffmpeg and the 64 bit version was not slow at all.

[x265_Project]

barely beneficial as there is hardly any consumer hevc content is available. Even transferring videos from iphone 8 to pc auto converts it to h264 before transferring i think i read. I think you can disable that though.

As far as i'm aware the only consumer camera that supports h265 recording is the 3yr old discontinued samsung nx1. The only other consumer content would be a small number of pirated rips on torrent sites and 4k streaming services.

The iPhone 7, 8 and 10 record HEVC photos and video. If you connect your phone to a PC, it mounts just like a flash memory drive, and you can transfer files directly. Many Android phones should be capable of recording HEVC video (they have a hardware encoder embedded in the System on a Chip (SOC)).

The GoPro Hero 6 records HEVC. Many security cameras record HEVC. I would expect many future cameras to support HEVC as the performance and efficiency of real-time embedded HEVC hardware encoders improves.

[soresu]

Is this anything to do with the Windows N Media Feature Pack required to run H.264/AVC inside browsers running Windows N editions?

Also, does anyone know what the likelihood of Apple beginning to use HEVC for trailers, especially 4K? At this point with Apple now throwing their weight behind HEVC and 4K/HDR, it seems strange that this has skipped their attention.

Do MCW have any plans to offer a more versatile HEVC hardware encoder based on their x265 work?

[huhn]

all new GPU have realtime HEVC encoder. i don't want to talk about the qualitly and the missing B frames (overrated).
and this is the HEVC subforum and it is not like we can't do our own x265 encodes.

[iwod]

Windows didn't have an HEVC decoder ten years ago; just some test players in a lab somewhere. Do you mean H.264? I know people who were improving Microsoft's H.264 decoder well past 2007. There has long been a pretty big team in Windows that works on this stuff, and they do a ton of fuzz testing so that malformed codecs don't cause playback issues or (especially!) compromise system security.

IIRC, Windows 10 was the first time an actual Windows HEVC software decoder existed, although it got pulled from the GM release.

LOL, that was how I read it as well the first and it didn't make sense. But he actually said : Decoder in "Windows 10" is years old. Not "10 years" old.

[iwod]

yes windows 10 was the first version with native HEVC support.
like i said it has this decoder for a long time now. windows 10 is from 2015.

so it was pretty much always supported with some very dumb limitations.

speed was good too the 32 bit version was really fast compared to ffmpeg and the 64 bit version was not slow at all.

Like @benwaggoner has said, it was pulled from the final release. So this is actually the first time HEVC is freely available on Windows 10.

[d3rd3vil]

What we need is a Dolby Vision update so we can at least send the material to the TV and let it do the work.

[nevcairiel]

What we need is a Dolby Vision update so we can at least send the material to the TV and let it do the work.

Please just stop spamming this into every thread.

[huhn]

Like @benwaggoner has said, it was pulled from the final release. So this is actually the first time HEVC is freely available on Windows 10.


which makes it even more strange to me i tested it on a lot of versions. was it really the release date? i mean that's quite sometime ago.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Maybe my question will be stupid but does the extension work for you? Maybe it requires some specific GPUs or encoding profiles? I am asking because it does not work for me at all, simply black screen (all the clips encoded with Handbrake, default settings). Maybe it requires something newer than my old i5-4200U? Other programs (Daum PotPlayer, Soda Player), however, play HEVC files with flying colors.

[nevcairiel]

Obviously it works fine, or noone would be able to play any HEVC Netflix content anymore.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Hmm, OK. Thanks. I haven't tried any online content yet, only offline. No big deal anyway as I prefer to movies on 65 inches rather than 13.3 :-)

[sneaker_ger]

Maybe it's a problem with certain GPU (drivers)? Does it only happen with 10 bit, 8 bit or both?

[d3rd3vil]

Please just stop spamming this into every thread.

I cant, I just cant

[huhn]

the old HEVC decoder was only usable when a hardware decoder was present which was very dumb. i guess the new one is the same.

[Asmodian]

Is that a technique to piggyback on the hardware's HEVC license?

[Przemek_Sperling]

@sneaker_ger & huhn

Thank you for your help. I also suspect the drivers of my graphic card, they are not the highest quality but I have no choice. Intel HD Graphics 4400 (a part of i5-4200U) can decode HEVC 8-bit (hybrid mode) with .4624 and .4703 drivers. HEVC 10-bit is decoded by software only. Anyway, the graphics does not suppport hardware HEVC decoding.

I will check it soon. It is not as simple as it looks because some things may work with older drivers rather than the new ones. I experienced it with some games (really old ones as the graphics is weak), so I presume it can be somehow similar with the extension and HEVC decoding.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Sorry that I let you wait for so long.

It seems that the extension works only if the grapic card supports hardware HEVC decoding. I checked it with my desktop computer with my overclocked Ryzen 1600 (@ 4.0 GHz) and Radeon RX 480. In this config it works, but if I change the graphic card to Radeon 6350 (as well as change the drivers, the 6350 uses legacy drivers only which do not work with the RX 480, the RX 480 drivers in turn refuse to work with the 6350) the screen remains black. The CPU is strong enough for standalone HEVC software decoding, so it is not any issue. A bit disappointing anyway.

I do not have more CPU/GPU samples to check it but it seems it gives some hints what can be wrong.

Once again, thanks for you help!

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