HEVC Support

Hi Coluch. Sorry to be slow...

It sounds like I'm on pretty much the same hardware as you. I'm on the same Mac Mini 2012, but my disks are local internal ones (although I don't see what difference that would make). The Apple TV is the same as your v4, also connected via ethernet. As we can now see, you won't need the 4K Apple TV.

As for my hat, part of my issue is a native distrust of large corporations... largely due to the fact that I work for one. 😉

To be honest, I don't really care about 4K. For what I want with movies, HD is plenty. I don't have any 4K source, so I haven't tried it, but what you quoted about the official specs makes sense if Apple is to be able to guarantee 4K performance.

That being said, unless it's blocked in software, you might get away with streaming some low-bandwidth 4K to the Apple TV 4. The iPad Mini 4 runs on the same A8 chip, and the specs for it say: "Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 4K, 30 frames per second". Decoding HEVC is more CPU-intensive than H.264, however.

Long ago, I even had a little success at streaming 720p video to an old Apple TV 2. In high motion bits, however, it will stutter. You'd just have to try it.

I tried streaming a 4K 2160p H.264 low complexity file via HomeSharing, and was informed by my AppleTV that it was not compatible. These are the exact same file specs my iPhone 4K videos use, and they play just fine via HomeSharing -- but they don't look like they're 4K to me, despite confirming the ATV settings.

So something is still not quite right here.

Weird- even with quality set to 19 for a 720p video the final size is still about the same as an mp4 for me.. Are you starting with the apple device settings in handbrake (i.e. "Apple 720p30 Surround")?

Yea I realized that after all that... I started digging in to it a bit more. Then went to Subler's GitHub page to post that as a change suggestion and found it already there. I was initially confused as I had used Subler to remux it from mkv to mp4 and then it hit me, I did it before updating to the latest build. Remuxed it again with the latest update and voila it worked perfectly without having to go all hex editor with it lol. So if anyone is having this problem just remux/recontainer it with Subler and it should be fixed. Off the top of my head it requires version 1.3.7 or later. So don't be an idiot like me and actually update your program BEFORE using it.

I use Subler and Handbrake religiously.

I have the following problem:

Mac Mini mid-2011

AppleTV 4 (4th Gen, not 4K)

MacOS High Sierra

I can get HEVC files to play perfectly in QuickTime Player and iTunes...but not in AppleTV. I get the ill-fated "This content could not be played on AppleTV because it is not supported" or some such nonsense.

Handbrake didn't touch the files but Subler did. Does Handbrake need to be involved in the initial conversion? Or did I miss something?

Unfortunately I still have the same problem as in Point 4. above.

Running latest versions of High Sierra, iTunes, on 2012 MacMini, and latest TV OS on Apple TV 4K.

Basically I have a bunch of videos in iTunes, shot with my iPhone 7, in HEVC format. They show up in iTunes, play fine on the MacMini, but are invisible on Apple TV via home sharing. Videos shot on iPhone 6s show up fine.

Tried this via iTunes on Macbook 2016, same problem. Tried on Apple TV 3, same problem.

Seems ludicrous for Apple to bring in a new video storage format, and then make it unusable via home sharing. That it works via iCloud photo streaming is of no use when you only have a 2MB broadband speed.

If the HEVC format is not usable via Homesharing then Apple needs to make this clear upfront.

The .mp4 and .m4v containers are completely compatible and work just fine for H.265 (HEVC). I have recently been re-encoding my entire iTunes library from original source with H.265 and testing with macOS 10.13 and tvOS 11 beta. The results in terms of quality and space saving are really amazing. However, there are significant issues for Home Sharing, and these appear to be by design by Apple, based largely on a reply I received from having submitted a bug report.

1. These files all play beautifully using QuickTime on the Mac (running macOS 10.13 beta).

2. iTunes allows these files to be imported just fine into the library, and they can be played there on the Mac, just as always.

3. These files can also be streamed to the Apple TV using AirPlay from any app on the Mac. This includes using the Remote app on an iPad or iPhone to control the iTunes with the AirPlay function set to the Apple TV (icon at top).

4. HOWEVER, these files do not show up at all on the Apple TV via Home Sharing. This is the "bug" I reported to Apple, and the reply that came back from Apple was this: "After reviewing your submission engineering has determined that the behavior you reported is currently functioning as designed."

5. Note that the older QuickTime Player v7 does not allow these files to be played, displaying the well known popup for an incompatible codec.

I strongly suspect that Apple is making a move to protect its iTunes Store sales and that the final version of tvOS 11 may not ever allow for Home Sharing of personal (ie, non-purchased) HEVC content. At this point, I would not at all be surprised if only HEVC content purchased from Apple were allowed for streaming via Home Sharing. I don't know this for sure, of course, but the reply above along with the technical behavior I've observed across several beta updates makes me strongly suspect so.

This being the case, I have moved my entire library from iTunes to Plex. With a very small change to the current Plex version, all of my HEVC content plays natively on the Apple TV with tvOS 11 beta, with no transcoding by the Plex server. My guess is that an updated version of Plex will get rid of the need even for the simple change I made, once the final tvOS 11 is released. If, on the other hand, Apple should modify tvOS such that HEVC cannot be streamed from any other servers (ie, other than iTunes for purchased content), then I will unplug the Apple TV altogether and use another device.

What encoder have you used?

I've tried with handbrake and on my MacBook Pro 2011 works nothing.

Also other movies, downloaded online don't work...

Oops... The new Apple TV 4K has an A10X chip, not an A9... even better than the basic requirement of an A9 for hardware decoding.

Oops... The new Apple TV 4k has an A10X chip, not an A9... even better than the basic requirement for hardware decoding.

Awesome- thank you!

Would be awesome to have h.265 support for iTunes and all iOS devices 😀

Sure there's a point speculating. A lot of us still have a physical iTunes Library and would love to cut our storage space for a video file in half by using a new container. HEVC would need to be a new file format as .mp4/.m4v is H.264. So, if they do plan on allowing HEVC (H.265) codec files into iTunes, one would think they would create a new Apple branded container and call it something like ".m5v" - the natural successor to ".m4v" in terms of naming schemes. Plus it makes sense if H.264 = .m4v that H.265 (HEVC) would have the .m5v name. Unless they want to all of a sudden allow .MKV into iTunes, but I don't see that happening - I see them creating their own container if they allow HEVC at all. Here's to hoping & hoping it comes soon! With SSDs, storage space is precious.

Hi there, first of all I want to say thank you for your post. The numbered itemized list of info is very helpful indeed, so thanks!

The assumptions you begin to make after that however, seem unrealistic to me, and are likely way off base. There are actually very good reasons why HEVC is not shared via home sharing yet. HARDWARE REASONS. You must remember, homesharing and airplay were originally supported only on the newest devices - the ones with hardware H.264 chips built in. At the time, realtime HD encoding for something like Airplay mirroring was well beyond the computers without these chips, but now everything has them.

Now here we are with a new format going mainstream, and Apple has just announced HEVC support on the next OS, iDevices, and Apple TV 4K. This is hardware support, in the form of a chip.

If you want to make an assumption about HEVC support going forward, I would point in the direction of the just-announced upgraded hardware devices, which appears to be a very similar transition phase as when H264 and airplay was rolled out. Soon, with these devices and HEVC, everything will likely work as it always has. My question is, how long will the H264 chips continue to be included before they are phased out? I would think we probably are entering a window of time here where we may WANT to convert our libraries for the future, while we can, before they get stuck in an unplayable past format prison.