Chrome now supports HEVC adaptive streaming

[contemporarymind]

Surprisingly, Chrome team added support for HEVC in adaptive streaming via MSE:

https://bitmovin.com/google-adds-hevc-support-chrome/
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium...tail?id=460703

Ideas on what might have triggered the decision after oh so many years?

[Balling]

I cannot outright tell you about Android, but on windows (that was also activated up to 1080p apparently works for 4k you need to wait, even though 4k drag and drop mp4 files works too) it was caused by very lazy programmers of microsoft that reacted poorely and slow to code review.

>adaptive streaming via MSE:

Via MFF, media foundation framework on windows. You already payed for SW decoding when you bought HW extension, or you payed for it when bying Nvidia or CPU, then windows 11 automcatically installs HW extension for manfacturer. For a long time HW extsntion was broken, it did not reorder B frames which meant the frame pattern was showing two future b-frames, then showing past frame, etc...

See my comment here https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.p...94#post1952394

[benwaggoner]

I am delighted and amazed this actually, finally happened! Maybe Google saw the lack of industry momentum around AV1, and got tired of lack of HDR and 4K premium content availability on Chrome?

[RanmaCanada]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

I am delighted and amazed this actually, finally happened! Maybe Google saw the lack of industry momentum around AV1, and got tired of lack of HDR and 4K premium content availability on Chrome?

With their push for another open standard to compete against DolbyVision, more than likely. They obvioulsy don't remember the xkcd comic about unifying standards.

[Balling]

Originally Posted by RanmaCanada

With their push for another open standard to compete against DolbyVision, more than likely. They obvioulsy don't remember the xkcd comic about unifying standards.

AV1 supports Dolby Vision. Interesting that everytime someone remembers this comic, they are completly wrong. Like with USB-C, first they were complaing about micro USB, while literally it does not support USB 3.x speeds, then Power Delivery spec, every time it was updated to support: PPS that was not supported by Apple, then when apple get 240 W first... Then Thunderbolt 3, now they are going to cry about Thunderbolt 5 and USB4 Gen 2.0 on PCIe 4, they say oh, is not 40 gbit/s not enough? While they are so dumb as to not know that 40 gbit/s is data + video and data is only 25 gbit/s max.

[Balling]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

I am delighted and amazed this actually, finally happened! Maybe Google saw the lack of industry momentum around AV1, and got tired of lack of HDR and 4K premium content availability on Chrome?

No, that was as I said just lazy Microsoft programmers. In fact Dolby Vision from Netflix still does not work and play ready code is far from ready by them. I am literally subscribed to 50 different issues in chromium with Edge poor people trying to upstream stuff.

[Blue_MiSfit]

WOW This is incredibly good news!

[Blue_MiSfit]

The dash.js test content works great on Windows (Both my underlying Core i9 and Nvidia GPU provide HEVC hardware decoding)!

https://reference.dashif.org/dash.js...yer/index.html

Go to Stream -> VOD (Static MPD) and you'll see a bunch of test vectors from Axinom (thanks guys) including some with H.265.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on macOS.

[FranceBB]

Originally Posted by Blue_MiSfit

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on macOS.

I picked the https://media.axprod.net/TestVectors...5/manifest.mpd as you suggested, but it plays as black on Linux. Is it the same behavior it has on OSX? (I can hear audio and see subtitles, but the video is black when decoding is set on my Intel i7 integrated GPU). I can't test NVIDIA 'cause my old linux laptop has a puny GTX 950M with no H.265 decoding and all my other desktop computers have Windows...

EDIT: Yep, double checked, it doesn't work on Fedora 36 x64 with Chrome Beta 106

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by FranceBB

I picked the https://media.axprod.net/TestVectors...5/manifest.mpd as you suggested, but it plays as black on Linux. Is it the same behavior it has on OSX? (I can hear audio and see subtitles, but the video is black when decoding is set on my Intel i7 integrated GPU). I can't test NVIDIA 'cause my old linux laptop has a puny GTX 950M with no H.265 decoding and all my other desktop computers have Windows...

EDIT: Yep, double checked, it doesn't work on Fedora 36 x64 with Chrome Beta 106

At a minimum Linux will require an installed video driver that exposes HEVC HW decode in a way Chrome can detect. I wouldn't be surprised if some drivers don't do that the right way (at least yet).

[Balling]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

At a minimum Linux will require an installed video driver that exposes HEVC HW decode in a way Chrome can detect. I wouldn't be surprised if some drivers don't do that the right way (at least yet).

There is literally no media foundation framework on linux, it is windows only. No, Linux will never work. No plans at least for now. There is no even any plans to add HDCP 2.3 or even 2.2. It should still be stuck on 1.4. Even my dumb galaxy s22 supports HDCP 2.3.

https://i.imgur.com/tcnzjJx.png

[hajj_3]

I wonder whether this is because of power consumption. There are currently problems with high electricity prices and possible power shortages, i'm wondering if this is being done to reduce that problem so that people don't have to software decode vp9/av1 if they have an hevc decoder but no vp9/av1 decoder.

[TEB]

It works for me on chrome now, but i have no license bought via the app store.. Does this mean that chrome is using the nvidia hw block to decode?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Originally Posted by hajj_3

I wonder whether this is because of power consumption. There are currently problems with high electricity prices and possible power shortages, i'm wondering if this is being done to reduce that problem so that people don't have to software decode vp9/av1 if they have an hevc decoder but no vp9/av1 decoder.

That would require HEVC renditions to be encoded by YouTube / other Google services. Those don't exist for the most part, so... I doubt it

[contemporarymind]

maybe it is an effort to mitigate the backlash of this related news item:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/e...cy-2022-07-07/

[hajj_3]

Originally Posted by Blue_MiSfit

That would require HEVC renditions to be encoded by YouTube / other Google services. Those don't exist for the most part, so... I doubt it

netflix encodes some content in 4k and other companies could add support due to chrome's support, maybe bbc iplayer, not sure if amazon prime uses it.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by hajj_3

netflix encodes some content in 4k and other companies could add support due to chrome's support, maybe bbc iplayer, not sure if amazon prime uses it.

Prime Video certainly plays in Chrome, if that's what you're asking.

[Balling]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

Prime Video certainly plays in Chrome, if that's what you're asking.

It cannot decode more than 720p without play ready DRM. Edge only can decode more.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by Blue_MiSfit

That would require HEVC renditions to be encoded by YouTube / other Google services. Those don't exist for the most part, so... I doubt it

I think YouTube does stream HEVC for HDR content to devices that don't support AV1 decode. Netflix certainly does.

[Balling]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

I think YouTube does stream HEVC for HDR content to devices that don't support AV1 decode. Netflix certainly does.

VP9. HDR is VP9 profile 2.