HEVC Support

At the time of the the Apple TV 4 release, tvOS 11 was but a twinkle in Tim Cook's eye... 😉

You need the new Apple TV 4K with an A9 processor only for hardware HEVC decoding. The A8 chip of the Apple TV 4 does software HEVC decoding just fine. (Please note that I am not saying "transcoding".) Have a look at slide 71 of this presentation (also attached here): https://devstreaming-cdn.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2017/503i6plfvfi7o3222/503/503_in troducing_heif_and_hevc.pdf

The slide says iOS but tvOS is included in that. You can also listen to this Apple Developer's video, starting at around the 20-minute mark: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/503/

Nobody seems to be worried about the Mac mini with macOS 10.13 beta I'm using... which dates from 2012. 🙂

I made the first test with the new Apple TV 4K, and it worked OK: iTunes (macOS Sierra) allowed me to add an H.265 (4K + HDR) video and the ATV streamed it through Home Sharing correctly.

P.S.: iTunes on the mac couldn't playback the file (black screen, but sound OK). We will see on macOS High Sierra...

I think you are mistaking iTunes as sending a bitstream, when in-fact, it will use your mac hardware to re-encode a real-time h.264 stream. This is pretty easy to prove, because you can stream other formats (unsupported on Atv) from within iTunes (such as MPEG-1) that will play fine on the Apple TV from iTunes via airplay. To re-state, you can import an MPEG video (MPEG-1) into iTunes and play it out to an Apple TV via AirPlay, because the host computer will transcode, as is the Airplay standard. The same is happening with your HEVC videos.

@Coluch... No, you’ve missed the point. It’s not a question of whether or not an HEVC can play or not. Clearly, it can and without transcoding. Just not via Home Sharing. Apple has intentionally prevented items personally encoded in HEVC from even appearing in the title lists inside the Computers app. They are filtered out on purpose. Believe me... I’ve tried it with a million different variations, and you saw the response I got from the beta engineering team. If these titles did show up, my guess is that they would probably play. After all, HEVC is one of the big ”stars” of the tvOS 11 show...

I’m not sure what all you’re really trying to say about bitsreams, transcoding, etc. But, whatever you mean to say, my post isn’t about the technical process of getting the video stream fro iTunes to the Apple TV. And, for that matter, iTunes has never done real-time, on-the-fly transcoding for Home Sharing clients. (However, I can’t make this statment definitively with regard to your example of MPEG-1, since I’ve never tried it... but I’d be really, really surprised if it did. And who would want to use MPEG-1 these days, anyway? 🙂)

But, again, all of this is beside the point, since tvOS 11 won’t even display personally-encoded HEVC titles in the titles list to begin with. Although I will never know, my guess is that upcoming purchased HEVC content would indeed show up. 🙂

So thank you for pointing me in the right direction regarding fourcc. For those of you experiencing where Quicktime will not play it or iTunes will show black screen but audio works fine it's due to the fourcc code being "wrong" for apple. I could not find program that will change it for you on a mac for mp4. Luckly there is zero change besides that one code, nothing else is different. There are two fourcc codes for HEVC hev1 and hvc1. Apple for some reason only works with hcv1 not hev1. Easiest way to fix this I found (without having to re transcode everything with the nightly build by handbrake (which will take for ever and lower your quality re-transcoding it all) is to get a hex editor (I used iHex) search for hev1 and replace it with hvc1 save and you are done! Worked flawlessly for me. You would think something so easy and simple as a tag that changes nothing else would not be a problem... Hopefully Apple addresses this by accepting both...

TLDR - if you cant open your HEVC with Quicktime and iTunes only shows a black screen with audio, hex edit hev1 to hvc1 and it will work.

For me the solution was: Subler.

The last version remux your h.265 video with the right apple specs.

So, without reencode, you'll be able to play and stream your video.

Instead if you need to encode : Handbreak nighly version is for now ( in attempt to final cut or compressor update, which should have hardware acceleration ) the best solution.

I also use Handbrake, but you have to get the latest “nightly build”. The current official version (1.07?) has an issue with the codec identifier for compatibility with Apple’s variant of H.265 (HEVC). This is what is sometimes called the “fourcc” code... but never mind all that. If you get the latest “nightly“, it will work.

Of course, it will work only in the way I’ve desribed above, which does not include Home Sharing... which is the big point of my post and why I’m so disappointed with Apple. (At the same time, though, Plex is far superior, so I’d really recommend you use that.)

Are you streaming through a 4th gen Apple TV? According to the tech. specs., this and previous gens are not compatible with h.265. Maybe, that is the may reason your titles are not showed in your ATV via HS.

We will have to wait for the 5th gen (4K HDR) release and tests.

BR,

M

According to their official tech. specs., both ATV are able to playback HEVC. However, v4 is limited to 1080p 30fps (v4K to 2160p 60fps + HDR).

uchuujin58, if you stream a 4k through a v4, is it scaled down or not played at all?

Thanks and BR,

M

P.S.: I have already updated to High Sierra --> no black screen anymore on iTunes when playing a H.265 file (4K+HDR) on a MBP early 2011.

Hello Coluch,

Thanks for your reply and nice comments.

However, your technical argument doesn’t hold water. What possible hardware requirement difference could there be between sending a file to the Apple TV from iTunes on the one hand (which works) and using the Apple TV interface to choose it in the “Computers” app for playback via Home Sharing on the other hand? The actual playback of the file would be the exact same process on the same hardware in each case, with the only difference being the way the file was chosen.

Furthermore, as a related aside, I’ve noticed another recent change when playing back purchased content via the TV app on the Apple TV... in other words, when streaming it directly from Apple’s servers: You now get advertising. I’ll leave to the readers to draw their own conclusions, but it certainly adds up for me: Apple has removed a fundamental piece of the Apple TV functionality in order to ensure that new content purchases (HEVC) can’t be played back with those advertising streams attached.

So, I maintain that my remarks are indeed completely well founded. There just simply is not any *technical* reason why standard and simple HD playback cannot be supported via Home Sharing. I, for one, will not be making any other content purchases from Apple and have already moved my entire library to Plex (which is far superior anyway and for which direct, untranscoded playback of HEVC works great).

I messed up a crucial word in a crucial sentence above, which should have read: “Apple has removed a fundamental piece of the Apple TV functionality in order to ensure that new content purchases (HEVC) can’t be played back without those advertising streams attached.”

Arghhhhh...

For Coluch... I am back to eat my hat as promised on Home Sharing, which has indeed returned. However, it seems to be the latest update of iTunes that did, not of tvOS. It seems that there has been some significant work behind the scenes on iTunes, and it appears that this is where the filter was.

Many thanks for the info.

I have a question: does it mean that in case I have an ATV 4K HDR and a MBP early 2011 I will be able to playblack an H.265 file added to iTunes via Home Sharing?

Again, many thanks,

M

Uchuujin58, that's amazing news! Thanks so much for sharing! Save your hat, it was by no means a guarantee, just that I expected it - though I've been let down before, haha.

Just to confirm, can you outline what hardware / connection setup you have going?

I'm on a 2012 Mac Mini running iTunes on Sierra, media library served in a NAS, with ATV4 connected via Ethernet. I'm wondering if I will need the new ATV4K to play my content if I begin converting everything to H265.

Hi uchuujin58, glad to see somebody has this working in iTunes. Could you share your settings in handbrake? I can get h265 into an m4v container but the size remains the same as an h264 file. Thank you-