HEVC Browser Support in macOS?

[Anon28109]

On Safari on my 2016 Macbook Pro HEVC mp4s always transcode. Stats for Nerds doesn't give a reason.

(HEVC mkvs transcode with the expected reason: container not supported)

I've tried enabling WebRTC H265 in Safari's Experimental Features but it doesn't make a difference.

   

 

On the same machine both HEVC mkvs and mp4s direct play in the Emby Web App.

 

 

Is this a bug, do I have something misconfigured or is this expected behavior?

I've just started digging into HEVC/H265 so I'm a bit out of my depth.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Anon28109

[Anon28109]

Darn, I meant to post this in the MacOS forum. Could someone please move it?

[Luke]

Hi, you enabled WebRTC H265 ? That should not impact the Emby web app.

[Anon28109]

On 12/12/2020 at 6:52 PM, Luke said:

Hi, you enabled WebRTC H265 ? That should not impact the Emby web app.

Yes, enabled and quit/restarted Safari to be safe. 

In the same browser I tried the two H265 test files here and both play.

https://tools.woolyss.com/html5-audio-video-tester/

 

[Luke]

ffmpeg log for the mp4 example? The browser doesn't support the mkv container.

[Anon28109]

Attached.

ffmpeg-transcode-6aaffb4e-f854-4077-8ca8-14ec5786b36c_1.txt

[Luke]

@Anon28109 I just tested on a macbook and an mp4 with hevc is direct playing in safari. I have not made any adjustments to this so I don't think any fix was made that I'm forgetting about.

My best guess is that safari always shows the option but it's only active on devices that have hardware decoding support of hevc.

[Anon28109]

20 hours ago, Luke said:

My best guess is that safari always shows the option but it's only active on devices that have hardware decoding support of hevc.

Well something's up because my Intel 630 can decode in hardware (as far as I know.) I disabled graphics switching to force the Radeon 555 and it still transcodes. Can you see anything in that log files that might explain why? (I'm running the latest version of everything including the Emby beta server.)

 

[Luke]

All I see is that it looks like the browser thinks it's not supported. @Happy2Play do you recall the link to the page that detects supported video formats? Thanks.

[Happy2Play]

Is html5test.com showing h265 support?

 

But that transcode log is only showing "VideoCodec=h264&AudioCodec=mp3,aac" support.

[Anon28109]

2 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Is html5test.com showing h265 support?

Yes. Screenshots attached.

[Luke]

Ok, the only other thing I can think of is that the web app tried to direct play it, but the browser reported a decoding error or some other error with the file and then the server automatically switched to transcoding. 

The server log would help confirm that.

And by the way, it's not unusual for safari to report features as supported that don't actually work on some subset of older devices. The same thing happened with ac3 support and the browser's picture in picture function. Once those two things were added the browser started reporting them as supported even on devices where they didn't work, and we ended up having to put hacks to avoid trying to use them.

[Anon28109]

Okay I queued up an H265 movie, restarted EmbyServer then hit play. Logs attached.

embyserver.txt.zip ffmpeg-transcode-a59e174c-0f65-4846-96b7-23f08b0336bc_1.txt.zip

[Luke]

Yes that's exactly it. It tried to direct play and then immediately switched to transcoding due to the browser reporting an error. So my guess is, on your device, safari is lying about supporting hevc, something that we've seen Safari do before with other browser features.

[Happy2Play]

if you put path to file in your browser does the mp4 play?

[Anon28109]

On 2/8/2021 at 1:45 PM, Happy2Play said:

if you put path to file in your browser does the mp4 play?

It never occurred to me to try that. No it doesn't.

The integrated graphics (630) should support it so it must be a software limitation, strange.

Thanks.

[Avenius]

Hi, I now this topic is a little bit older, but I here got a similar behavior and tested a little bit and it will be even stranger:

Okay I'm using a newer MacBook (2019) which got hardware support for HEVC, Monterey 12.1, Safari 15.1, Emby 4.6.6 and also I here got the same problem that a 1080p hevc will not play directly in safari browser (web interface) and try to recode/trancode it to h264.

The really strange thing now is, the problem is not the video stream, but the audio stream.

I tested a few setups and at the moment it looks like safari doesn't like an AC3 Stream (maybe other too), if I drop the audio streams completely or select an AAC audio stream, direct streaming works. I only tested it with mp4 containers, mkv containers seems to be always recoded.

Maybe this could helps anyone.

[Luke]

25 minutes ago, Avenius said:

Hi, I now this topic is a little bit older, but I here got a similar behavior and tested a little bit and it will be even stranger:

Okay I'm using a newer MacBook (2019) which got hardware support for HEVC, Monterey 12.1, Safari 15.1, Emby 4.6.6 and also I here got the same problem that a 1080p hevc will not play directly in safari browser (web interface) and try to recode/trancode it to h264.

The really strange thing now is, the problem is not the video stream, but the audio stream.

I tested a few setups and at the moment it looks like safari doesn't like an AC3 Stream (maybe other too), if I drop the audio streams completely or select an AAC audio stream, direct streaming works. I only tested it with mp4 containers, mkv containers seems to be always recoded.

Maybe this could helps anyone.

Hi, this will be improved in the upcoming Emby Server 4.7 release where even if the audio has to be converted, it won't necessarily cause the video to transcode.