Apple Announces Native HEVC Support In MacOS High Sierra and iOS 11 (cnet.com)

New submitter StreamingEagle writes: Apple massively improves the quality of photo and video experiences, including High Dynamic Range. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) can double photo and video storage capacity, and cut the time to upload or share by half. HEVC video compression and HEIF photo compression are coming to iOS 11 and MacOS High Sierra. Sean Hollister adds via CNET: "Having used HEVC quite a bit myself, I can vouch that it takes up less space. I recently transcoded roughly a terabyte of video to HEVC on my Windows PC, and saw hundreds of gigabytes of savings."

Comments

Great, but what about open codecs?

[Peetke]

Will they support VP8 VP9 and AV1? That would be far more great than HEVC.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[DontBeAMoran]

Why? Give us one good reason why Apple should bother with any of these.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[ezelkow1]

Thats up to apple. Only reason this is now a 'feature' is because they are releasing updated hardware with kabylake parts that support native HEVC (and VP9) decode with the intel gpu. Previously they couldnt and would have relied on whether or not there was a sufficient 3rd party gpu which only the pro's would have so there was no point in adding it. So theoretically they can, the hardware supports it, whether or not they will do it is another story

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[Sycraft-fu]

Youtube.

If you want one simple reason (there are plenty of other more complex ones) Youtube uses VP9 and you get better quality per bit when you can stream from them in VP9 instead of H.264. Given that Youtube is, by far, the world's largest video site that is good enough to support it right there.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[sl3xd]

VP9 contains patented technology (much like HEVC).

Unlike HEVC, in order to use VP9, Apple would have to grant Google free use of its patents (VP9 has a whole patent reciprocity agreement - much like the GPLv3). So if you have no patents of your own, VP9 sounds like a great deal.

That makes VP9 a non-starter for a lot of organizations, and it seems that Apple is among them.

VP9 has a big user base because it's promoted by an industry giant, but it is not an international standard, but a format controlled by a corporate entity. The exact same thing could be said of Windows Media a decade ago.

Apple's long tendency is to stick with ISO formats, and I'm not going to complain. I'm tired of proprietary and single-company defined "standards" like VP9.

As for AV1... well... among other things, it's not finished: AV1's bitstream isn't even frozen yet (and isn't expected to be until later 2017).

So until AV1 is finished, and has zero patent problems for Apple (money ain't a problem; mandatory cross-licensing is), I doubt we'll see much from Apple.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Give us one good reason why Apple should bother with any of these.

Three good reasons:

1. VP8, VP9, and AV1 are royalty-free. Anyone can use them to encode and decode for any purpose without paying licensing fees. HEVC, in contrast, requires you to buy separate three licenses from three separate patent pools (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos Media). Additionally you must negotiate another license from Technicolor to use HEVC and licenses from any other company that isn't in one of the three patent pools.

2. AV1 already outperforms HEVC in coding efficiency. The goal is to be 30% better than HEVC by the time AV1 is released at the end of this year.

3. Most of the major browser vendors are in the Alliance for Open Media which develops AV1. Apple is the only one that isn't.

HEVC is a losing proposition. Apple's making a mistake here.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix. Netflix is in the Alliance for Open Media. Netflix will be encoding their content in AV1.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[Anonymous Coward]

VP9 contains patented technology (much like HEVC)

The issue isn't patents, the issue is the licensing. Baseline JPEG has always contained patented technology but it was licensed under royalty-free terms so everyone was free to use JPEG. Similarly, VP9 contains patented technology which is licensed under royalty-free terms and everyone is free to use it.

This is wholly unlike HEVC. To use HEVC you must buy three separate licenses from three separate patent pools (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos Media) and then negotiate additional licenses from companies like Technicolor that aren't in any patent pool.

Apple would have to grant Google free use of its patents

Flatly wrong. Remember that Intel supports VP9 in hardware. Remember that Microsoft supports VP9 in Edge. Read the license and read the licensing FAQ.

As for AV1... well... among other things, it's not finished:

But as you say, it'll be finished at the end of this year. AV1 also outperforms HEVC and has broad industry backing. HEVC has no future.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

HEVC is a losing proposition. Apple's making a mistake here.

6 month old list of HEVC hardware decode-supporting devices

Current list of AV1 hardware decode-supporting devices: ...

I'm not seeing Apple's mistake. I'm seeing a software zealot that thinks that battery life is simply a hardware problem for others to solve.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

Apple's making a mistake here

You can't make a hardware codec if the bitstream of the codec is not frozen.

So Apple's mistake is not supporting, in software only, a codec where even the software side is under delayed finalization (original due date was March 2017)? Should everybody simply redo their encodings when the bitstream is finalized?

Yeah, I'm still not seeing the mistake, only zealotry.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm still not seeing the mistake, only zealotry.

No, what you're seeing is pragmatism. HEVC is a licensing mess. HEVC is already outperformed by AV1. AV1 will be supported by all other browsers.

Apple's mistake is wasting time on HEVC at all. HEVC is just another dead end codec for the web. AV1 is the clear way forward.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

HEVC is a licensing mess.

And yet all the major platforms have HEVC hardware decoders. Apparently not that much of a mess.

HEVC is already outperformed by AV1.

Too little to late. See H.264 vs. VP9.

AV1 will be supported by all other browsers.

If it's not supported in hardware, then browser support is not relevant. I'm not sacrificing 95% of my phone's battery life to watch AV1 video.

Apple's mistake is wasting time on HEVC at all. HEVC is just another dead end codec for the web. AV1 is the clear way forward.

All concrete evidence running to the contrary...

AV1 is the true successor to VP9... an also ran that will remain an also ran.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

A lot of major hardware manufacturers are in AOM so they'll add hardware AV1 support ASAP when the bitstream is frozen.

When will that be again? Before or after the patent lawsuits?

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

Skipped the "when" question. Probably because there is no answer...

Just wait, and wait, and wait. It will be the best. You'll get so much video quality you'll get tired of it. Trust me.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[tepples]

Unlike HEVC, in order to use VP9, Apple would have to grant Google free use of its patents (VP9 has a whole patent reciprocity agreement - much like the GPLv3).

Free use of all patents owned by Apple Inc. and its subsidiaries, or only of those patents essential to VP9? The reciprocity provision of the additional patent grant for VP8 and VP9 appears to apply only to patents related to those codecs.

VP9 has a big user base because it's promoted by an industry giant, but it is not an international standard

What organizations qualify to set "an international standard"? If IETF counts, then VP8 is RFC 6386, and standardization of VP9 is ongoing.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[tepples]

If Apple is allowed to use Google's essential patents only on condition that Apple doesn't use Apple's essential patents against Google or other users of VP9, then Apple's essential patents are in effect licensed to Google and other users of VP9, even if no formal written instrument has been signed.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

Remember that both VP8 and VP9 succeeded in being royalty-free video formats. YouTube uses VP9 [googleblog.com] and has done for a long time. Netflix uses VP9 [medium.com]. AV1 will also succeed in being a royalty-free format.

Wrong.. Google subsidized it. Like everything else until they get bored and move on to the next thing.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[DRJlaw]

Arguing with an AC that will never have to take responsibility for their inane positions has officially become boring.

Won't happen. Reprise of H.264 vs VP9. Google will use it. Essentially nobody else will. Installed base of hardware decoders, where HEVC has a 4 year lead time, will dictate market share.

End of story.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[sl3xd]

Ongoing is another word for "not finished" as far as standardization goes.

Moreover, there are many kinds of RFC, including "informational publications" which are not part of the standards track.

RFC6386 is an informational publication, and is not on the standards track.

In contrast, the Opus codec is on the standards track, and there are several standards track RFC's for Opus - from the codec, to the bitstream, to the encapsulation in an ogg container.

So when we see VP8/9 become standards track, it might be interesting.

I suspect AV1 stands a good chance of being standardized first.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[Malc]

Why are you talking about H.264 (AVC)? This article is about H.265 (HEVC).

There isn't a VP9 encoder out there that can match the HEVC codecs in terms of encoding speed or quality at a given bitrate or bitrate savings at a fixed quality. And what about hardware accelerated codecs (encoding and decoding) and support within the chipsets used by Apple?

And when I talk about codecs, I'm not for instance talking about x265, which is typically the most common free one used by /.ers. There are other commercial HEVC codecs out there that Apple could be licensing that are far faster and comparable in quality.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[v1nce29]

Yeah zero support except adobe, amazon, amd, arm, broadcom, intel, microsoft, google, mozilla, netflix,nvidia... Everybody is in. Except Apple. As usual.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[Powercntrl]

HEVC is a losing proposition. Apple's making a mistake here.

The fucking $40 Amazon Fire Stick supports HEVC. That's reason enough for Apple to get with the times.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[fellip_nectar]

And Sony. As usual.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[fellip_nectar]

Yes, there is a marked difference. I don't remember Theora, Dirac, etc having the backing of Adobe, Microsoft, Amazon, AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia and Realtek amongst others.

Oh, and guess what? The people who have to pay the licence fee care about the licence fee - which is precisely why the Alliance for Open Media was created in the first place.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[cheesybagel]

It's not like they couldn't continue using H.264 for a couple more years until AV1 was available if they wanted to.

Instead they're trying to promote a codec they stand to earn patent royalties from. At the same time they sue Qualcomm for enforcing antenna patent royalties on them. Typical.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[cheesybagel]

Practically no one uses HEVC hardware decode right now. Don't think that because it will come to market first they will necessarily win this one. HD-DVD players also came out before Blu-ray players and still lost in the market.

Re: Great, but what about open codecs?

[cheesybagel]

That appleinsider.com article is from March 7th 2013. As usual they put their own special spin on it. The fact is Google and the MPEG LA reached an agreement after the DoJ started to investigate the MPEG LA for stifling competition. The agreement is that Google has a patent license for VP8 and Google can sublicense it to anyone they wish to.

Re:Great, but what about open codecs?

[oh-dark-thirty]

trololol

HEIF

[DontBeAMoran]

Great, anyone want to bet websites will start using HEIF images instead of JPEG in a few months/years? And all older devices and browsers won't be able to view websites anymore?

And why did JPEG2000 support never took off?

Re:HEIF

[sl3xd]

And why did JPEG2000 support never took off?

JPEG2000's failing is that while it was "better", it wasn't enough of an improvement to be worth the effort to migrate.

Roughly the same thing happened with WebP - Google's equivalent of HEIF, based on VP8.

WebP doens't have any patent issues (unlike HEIF/JPEG2000), yet seven years later, we still don't see websites adopting it.

Re:HEIF

[sexconker]

Do I look like I know what a "jay peg" is?

Re:HEIF

[Misagon]

JPEG-2000 is slow to decode. There exists a somewhat faster algorithm but it is patent-encumbered and proprietary.

The only place where JPEG-2000 has got widespread adoption is in digital cinema (Motion JPEG-2000) and that requires special-purpose hardware where as H.264 at the same quality could be decoded in software on a commodity PC.

Re:HEIF

[Goaway]

Even worse, really: It's not actually much of an improvement over JPEG at all. JPEG-2000 artefacts tend to be more visually displeasing.

Re:HEIF

[sl3xd]

Agreed. Back in the day there was a lot of wavelet hype that didn't seem to pan out as well as was hoped.

Either that or it was patented into obscurity.

Haha

[ArchieBunker]

I use VLC and Android devices. I don't have to transcode a fucking thing.

Re:Haha

[sl3xd]

Because VLC on iOS isn't a thing?

Re:Haha

[ArchieBunker]

Good luck putting a file on your phone without iTunes having its way.

Re:Haha

[sl3xd]

Are you serious?

VLC has no problem st all downloading (or streaming) using SMB, FTP, Plex, and DNLA. If you want, you can even go the slow route and download them using a USB cable. I connect VLC to my MythTV box all the time, transfer files, and play them for my kids on a road trip. VLC even lets me adjust the audio synchronization to account for the delay from Bluetooth and my car's audio system.

It's a total non-issue.

Re:Haha

[TheRaven64]

It isn't much of a thing. The version distributed via the Apple App Store doesn't have any of the GPL'd bits, which includes things like the DVD menu support. You use dvdbackup to take a CSS-free copy of a DVD and play it fine on any version of VLC except the iOS one.

Re:Haha

[sl3xd]

DVD Menus aren't a terribly useful feature in my particular use case, but I'm definitely not the only use case that matters.

You can download the source code, compile your own version (with whatever you want) with Xcode, and upload it to your personal device. (You can do the same thing with Kodi, for example).

I've never bothered with a DVD backup in its native MPEG-2 Video; I always transcode to h.264 and put the disc into a box for storage.

That's been my standard way of handling DVD's for over a decade at this point... size matters less these days, but double the movies for the size still counts - especially when my kids are streaming their shows from a portable media server while on a road trip. (Both in terms of absolute storage, and bandwidth).

Re:Haha

[ArchieBunker]

I want the file located on my phone for offline use.

Re:Haha

[sl3xd]

I did mention "downloading or streaming"

Obviously, you're not interested in the streaming part, but you can absolutely download to the phone's flash memory for offline use.

In fact, you can Transfer files VLC directly using SMB, FTP, Plex or DNLA. Alternatively, you can use the "send to" function to have one iOS app (such as an FTP/SFTP client, Dropbox, or even email) into VLC.

The VLC devs did a pretty good job on iOS; they even made a library so other programs can embed VLC into their apps. You can even download the source code, and use it to build a customized version of VLC.

Re:Saved hundreds of gigabytes?

[wonkey_monkey]

Recompressing will unavoidably worsen image quality, and of course the quoted bit doesn't go into any detail. I could take a DVD, MPEG2, and "transcode" it to another MPEG2 and make it 80% smaller! It'll look crap, mind you...

Nah

[ArchieBunker]

x265 is where things are going. Look to the pirate scene to pick the best codec.

Re:Nah

[sl3xd]

h.265 is HEVC... x265 is just an open-source implementation of h.265...

Re:Nah

[sexconker]

XVID came about from an MS codec, and DivX ;) got its start from, well, look at the name.
They gradually got better over time, but the best codecs available to mere mortals were the $$$ ones for years and years.

LAME was ass and was developed against the official Fraunhofer MP3 encoder, and it took years to reach parity. When it finally did, people were wondering if MP3Pro was going to make LAME irrelevant again.

With MP4, we had Nero's aacenc to deal with. Everyone was passing it out because it was THE codec to use, and people were injecting malware into it, so Nero said "fuck it" and made it free to all.

Commercial encoders are developed slowly, infrequently, and target devices like DVD/BluRay players and other set top boxes.

It used to take ages for free (or freely available) codecs to match or beat commercial codecs or reference implementations. With each new generation that time is shrinking. Is it due to a wider audience of collaborators and testers on the internet? Is it due to faster PCs and broadband connections for testing samples and sharing results? Is it due to the increasing complexity of advanced codecs being too unwieldy for a huge licensing body to handle (technically and legally)? I don't know and I don't care.

I just know that it wasn't always this good.

As for x265 vs AV1, x265 is basically HEVC. AV1 is far, far away from being viable even from the encoding side. In terms of being able to decode it freely and easily (and with hardware acceleration), it'll be a long ass time. AV1 faces the chicken/egg problem new codecs face. Without big media players pushing it it will have an uphill battle.

Re:Nah

[ezelkow1]

The industry is already using it. While netflix may have their name on AV1, they are already using HEVC for all of their 4k content. So is every other big player in the content industry, if its 4k, its hevc at this point. So I wouldnt say the industry isnt biting, they are using whats currently available and feasible to get to market

Re: Nah

[ezelkow1]

It depends on the devices they plan to be on. If they want to have any sort of compatibility with existing 4k capable devices they will have to maintain their hevc encoded library. Since those devices wont magically gain an AV1 decoder its either they completely ditch support for any current 4k capable device, or they continue encoding for them

Re:Nah

[Powercntrl]

x265 is where things are going. Look to the pirate scene to pick the best codec.

The pirate scene is still mostly using H.264 MP4 format so people can play it directly on their smart TVs and el cheapo Android boxes.

How royalty-free codecs benefit end users

[tepples]

I'll relevant to me as an end user.

The company to whose service you subscribe to receive video on demand is more likely to stay in business if it doesn't have to pay a cut of its subscription revenue to codec patent pools. The amateurs who produce video and provide it for your viewing without charge are more likely to make such video available to you if they don't have to buy a licensed encoder.

I only use safari.

When you as an end user make a choice to use only Safari, you as an end user make a choice to limit the variety of video programming available to you. Instead of viewing video programming from both VP9 users and HEVC licensees, you can view only programming from HEVC licensees.

Re:Saved hundreds of gigabytes?

[Sasayaki]

Granted this is 100% true, but h.265 (or HEVC) can basically encode twice the bit rate at the same file size compared to h.264. Accordingly, transcoding h.264 into h.265 at 1.5 the bit rate is essentially lossless in terms of visual quality, but the final file will be approximately 75% the original size.

If someone has a bunch of high bit-rate h.264 (aka not stuff downloaded off the web which tends to be really highly compressed anyway), I can see someone wanting to save space and reencode it, especially if it's for something like "all of the X-files" which they're unlikely to want to rewatch anytime soon, and when they don't, won't mind a slight drop in quality.

If your codec budget is zero, VP9 is superior

[tepples]

How much does it cost to take a license from all patent pools that control at least one essential HEVC patent? If your codec license budget is zero, then a royalty-free codec such as VP9 is superior to HEVC.

Re:If your codec budget is zero, VP9 is superior

[tepples]

What evidence do you have that the WebM Additional IP Rights Grant is insufficient to prevent users of VP9 from being "sued out of existence for patient infringement"?

Re:If your codec budget is zero, VP9 is superior

[gnasher719]

How much does it cost to take a license from all patent pools that control at least one essential HEVC patent? If your codec license budget is zero, then a royalty-free codec such as VP9 is superior to HEVC.

If your codec licensing budget is zero, then you better get the hell out of that business.

Does VLC work in Safari?

[tepples]

Do Safari and other browsers wrapping WebKit for iOS allow embedding VLC for iOS as the player used for the <video> element? If not, how does the request to stream a video get from the browser to VLC?

Re:Does VLC work in Safari?

[sl3xd]

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but isn't having the web browser render the video internally (without an external program/plugin) the entire point of the video tag?

I certainly haven't seen that ability for the various browsers on Windows, MacOS, Linux. I don't see why iOS should be different.

Re:Does VLC work in Safari?

[tepples]

isn't having the web browser render the video internally (without an external program/plugin) the entire point of the video tag?

True, it is the entire point of <video>. And it shows why sl3xd's suggestion to rely on VLC for iOS isn't an adequate substitute for support in the operating system for a video codec.

Re:Does VLC work in Safari?

[sl3xd]

I disagree; while you can't embed <video> - and have the video play in a useless postage-stamp-sized video in the web browser, you can have the web browser open an external app to play the media full screen -- which is exactly what happens for YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, and VLC.

  I really don't see the applicability when it's the same behavior that you see for <video> tags on any other OS/browser.

The bottom line is that HEVC (h.265) is the ISO standard, and is one of the lowest common denominator formats. I can walk into an electronics store and buy a video camera that records in HEVC. New broadcasting equipment supports HEVC.

I'm sick of Company X promoting their product as a "standard", when in reality, they control the format (and its future) completely, in spite of the format being "open".

Xiph did it with Theora; Microsoft did it with Windows Media/VC-1; the BBC did it with Dirac/VC-2; Google did VP8/VP9; Cisco is promoting NETVC. I'm done with that BS.

AV1 shows promise, but until I see third-party set top boxes (Roku, Sony, Panasonic), or standalone cameras that uses the codec directly, I don't get excited about it.

Re:Does VLC work in Safari?

[cheesybagel]

There are plenty of useless ISO standards. Microsoft's OOXML is one. It doesn't matter if ISO rubber stamped it or not. What matters is if it gains widespread adoption to be considered one.

When starting from the same original source

[tepples]

I think the claim was intended to relate to a transcode from high-bitrate source material to a lower-bitrate stream intended for distribution through the Internet. Settings for leading AVC and HEVC encoders that produce similar levels of visible distortion will produce a significantly lower bitrate with HEVC than with AVC.

HEVC patent licensing

[StreamingEagle]

How many of you posting that HEVC patent licensing is a mess are actually in need of an HEVC patent license? I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say... none of you. Apple has just added HEVC support to iOS and MacOS, retroactively upgrading hundreds of millions of devices. Obviously, Apple can handle their IP licensing adequately, and so anyone using HEVC on a supported device doesn't have to worry about taking a patent license, as the device itself is licensed, and so an app developer, service provider or end user is covered. Samsung's Galaxy S8, LG's G6, and Sony's new Xperia XZ Premium all support HEVC natively, and so do many leading PCs and tablets. Most TVs and connected set-top boxes (Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast) support HEVC natively. When there are billions of devices with HEVC support, app and service developers can just use it. HEVC is clearly superior to VP9. Every unbiased, well-designed study shows this, including Netflix's own study, which showed HEVC was 20% more efficient. AV1 may some day be more efficient, but at a cost of 5 to 10x higher complexity (compute requirements). In any case, it's not a standard yet, and the AOM hopes to have a standard by the end of 2017. HEVC was finalized in January 2013, meaning that it has roughly a 5 year head start on AV1. Look how long it takes for standards to go from a final, ratified spec to optimized implementations and actual deployments. Generally, it takes 3 or 4 years. I'm not saying AV1 won't eventually succeed. But it's got a long, long way to go. HEVC was developed by a standards body (2 actually... the ISO and the ITU), meaning that the patents are RAND-encumbered. The RAND obligation means that patent holders can't just charge whatever they want. They can only charge a "reasonable" fee. What is reasonable? Well, if the market agrees with the price the patent holders are offering, by definition the price was reasonable. If not, a judge may decide (as in Microsoft v Motorola, where Motorola wanted 20 cents for H.264 and 802.11 patents and the judge agreed with Microsoft that 2 cents was reasonable). If anyone holds patents that VP9 reads on, they are not RAND encumbered. Such patent holders could go to court and get an injunction to stop shipment of infringing product (which RAND encumbered patent holders can't until they can prove that they have met their RAND obligation). Lastly, Apple didn't have to obtain their HEVC patent licenses through MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos. They're big enough to go directly to all of the individual patent holders, and they probably already have patent cross-license agreements with many of the other patent holders. The same is true for other large device OEMs.

Re: HEVC patent licensing

[StreamingEagle]

https://developer.apple.com/li... Media and Web New in tvOS 11.0 - Support for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a new standard for video encoding that offers substantially better compression than H.264 at the same level of visual quality. Use AV Foundation to playback movies containing HEVC encoded tracks, and to export videos. VideoToolbox clients can encode and decode HEVC video bitstreams. New in tvOS 11.0 - Support for High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF). High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) is a new standard of image compression that nearly doubles current data compression ratios for the same level of image quality. Added functionality to the Photos and Core Image frameworks to display, encode, and export HEIF images.

Re: HEVC patent licensing

[StreamingEagle]

Apple is using the same A8 chip in Apple TV as they use in iPhones. This chip has a built-in hardware HEVC decoder (and encoder). http://appleinsider.com/articl... It's not practical from a performance perspective to decode 4K HEVC in software. It's possible with an optimized HEVC decoder to handle 1080P30 on a quad-core ARM processor, but your chip will get hot, and in a mobile device your battery will be drained quickly. Apple is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever support VP9 or AV1. HEVC makes VP9 obsolete. AV1 isn't even a final standard yet, and it's a long, long way from being practical. The IP rights have not been cleared. If you're going to talk about AV1, why not compare it to H.266? By the way, GPU acceleration implies GPU computing (OpenCL, CUDA, Metal, etc.). HEVC hardware decoders don't use the GPU. They used a fixed-function hardware (specific section of silicon on the SOC).

Re: HEVC patent licensing

[StreamingEagle]

The A8 has a fixed function HEVC decoder and encoder, just as the Qualcomm Snapdragon series of SOCs does (starting with the 801), the Samsung Exynos, and most other mobile SOCs. Apple didn't license Ittiam's decoder.

Re: HEVC patent licensing

[StreamingEagle]

Let me Google that for you... https://www.forbes.com/sites/e...

Re: HEVC patent licensing

[StreamingEagle]

This article compares Apple's A8 chip with a Qualcomm Snapdragon, saying "In terms of data management, both Qualcomm and Apple support H.265 video encoding and decoding, also referred to HEVC or high efficiency video coding." I'm done arguing with an Anonymous Coward. Apple makes A8 chips for themselves only, and they don't feel the need to list detailed specs of their custom SOC like other SOC vendors (Qualcomm, Mediatek, etc.) do. Obviously you don't work in this field. You can speculate that Apple is implementing HEVC encoding and decoding in software, but you're wrong. Anyone who works in this domain (chips, devices, software, video services) knows this as a plain, obvious fact. HEVC encoding would never be feasible on an ARM CPU, even with "GPU acceleration". Protected playback would not be feasible at all. And either would drain the battery fast, or cause a thermal overload. For the benefit of others reading this thread, I wanted to correct erroneous speculation, but I'm done now.

Re:Saved hundreds of gigabytes?

[thegarbz]

It'll look crap, mind you...

I recoded a portion of my media library into H.265. I can't tell the difference, but the free space on my drive can.

All iOS web browsers use Apple WebKit

[tepples]

Chrome for iOS and Firefox for iOS use the same Apple WebKit browser engine as Safari for iOS, with the same set of supported and unsupported video codecs. This means that if you fire up Chrome for iOS because you have found that a video is unsupported in Safari for iOS, you will find that it is still unsupported in Chrome for iOS.

Because I'm talking about Youtube

[Sycraft-fu]

If you go to Youtube, it is going to send you a video in VP9 if it can, H.264 if it can't. It doesn't use H.265 at this point.

H.256 will probably be useful in the future but RIGHT NOW VP9 is huge because of Youtube. Same deal with Netflix. They've started using VP9 for some of their stuff (and more and more as they convert it).

So I'm not hating on H.265 support, Windows 10 supports it, new Intel CPUs support it, it is a coming thing. However VP9 is something that has been deployed for some time to get better quality/bit and is currently in use by the two most major video providers on the net. That makes it worth supporting.

Oh, and it is supported in hardware on new Intel chips so it isn't like a ton has to be done.

What instead of Media Source Extensions for VLC?

[tepples]

you can have the web browser open an external app to play the media full screen

Provided that said external app supports the media. Many sites offering HTML5 video use Media Source Extensions (MSE) so that the client has finer control of buffering and can deter receiving the body of the video before having received the message from the video's sponsor. But Wikipedia's article about MSE mentions nothing about VLC, nor does its article about VLC mention MSE.

Or are you claiming that MSE ought not be used, that VLC media player by itself handles buffering well and that the operator of a site showing a sponsored video ought to be able to afford to license HEVC? Or are sponsored videos themselves deprecated?

I'm sick of Company X promoting their product as a "standard", when in reality, they control the format (and its future) completely, in spite of the format being "open".

Which video format is both standard and royalty-free? If the answer is "none", how does it benefit the public for the answer to remain "none"?

Re:What instead of Media Source Extensions for VLC

[sl3xd]

Which video format is both standard and royalty-free? If the answer is "none", how does it benefit the public for the answer to remain "none"?

The landscape is already littered with single-party "open standards" that never saw widespread adoption.

Which is why I watch AV1 with interest; it has many members in its consortium, and the support spans the industry from content delivery, to encoder and OS, to hardware-level support.

It has an uphill battle to fight against HEVC, having lost the race to be first to market, but it has the potential to win in the end.