Tried some 4k 30fps video at around 20Mb/s and it plays fine. Tried 4k at 60fps but in h264 an surprised it decoded them without a problem. Streaming using minidlna from a Raspberry Pi 3 to Infuse app. VLC app hated them all.
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AppleTV 4th Gen does H.265 very well
- Thread starter jimsowden
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i know this is an old post but I encoded my whole library in HEVC (future proof) and I've found that:
- I use Plex, Mac Mini Core i5 Dual Core as a Server and an Apple TV 4.
- Plex always transcodes, but it works fine without any lags, and the Mac Mini can even multitask while transcoding, I can play more than one movie at the same time (tried it with 2 movies, both HEVC 1080p).
- Plex used to transcode with h.264 anyways since I always watch movies with subtitles, no big deal.
- All my movies are 1080p, HEVC, 5.1 sound, 10bit & 3000 bitrate.
So, in a nutshell: If you're using Infuse or VLC with HEVC, you're transcoding it wrong! The Apple TV itself with A8 processor can't do all the work unless you have a low bitrate movie. Use Plex with a decent server to play HEVC or go with h.264.
By the way, I used to have movies at 6GB, now with 2.5 to 3 GB of HEVC movies the quality is way better since 10bit and efficiency.
- I use Plex, Mac Mini Core i5 Dual Core as a Server and an Apple TV 4.
- Plex always transcodes, but it works fine without any lags, and the Mac Mini can even multitask while transcoding, I can play more than one movie at the same time (tried it with 2 movies, both HEVC 1080p).
- Plex used to transcode with h.264 anyways since I always watch movies with subtitles, no big deal.
- All my movies are 1080p, HEVC, 5.1 sound, 10bit & 3000 bitrate.
So, in a nutshell: If you're using Infuse or VLC with HEVC, you're transcoding it wrong! The Apple TV itself with A8 processor can't do all the work unless you have a low bitrate movie. Use Plex with a decent server to play HEVC or go with h.264.
By the way, I used to have movies at 6GB, now with 2.5 to 3 GB of HEVC movies the quality is way better since 10bit and efficiency.
I'm almost sure, aTV does not do H.265/HEVC at all. So it needs to be transcoded to H.264/AVC in order to see anything on aTV.
Incidentally, H.264 is the only codec aTV does at all (or any iOS device for that matter).
AirVideo requires a server running on your computer and is capable of auto-transcoding as required. Can you tell if it is transcoding or not by looking at the server?
[doublepost=1480715023][/doublepost]
That is good idea... I have been hesitant of jumping fully to Plex and want to keep everything playable by MrMC (don't care about Infuse). Only issue is that I HATE the Plex client for AppleTV and MrMC Plex support currently does not support transcoding.
I just swapped my Xbox One for an Xbox One S, so I will play around with Plex client on that. There are mixed reports on its support for H.265 and depends on the original format for direct stream e.g. Mp4 vs. mkv and type of audio.
Ok I did some tests today with my new Xbox One S and Plex...To my surprise the Plex client has no issues playing H.265 HEVC. I also had some 4K content in MKV and it plays perfect but in all fairness I did not have a high bitrate file to play. Plex even detects it as 4K and displays on the info page.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/203824396-What-media-formats-are-supported-
AppleTV 4 on its way to becoming a paper weight or doorstop soon unless they get H.265 and 4K support happening in an upgrade. But $299 CAD for Xbox One S with 500GB HDD and a controller vs. $259 CAD for 64GB AppleTV with no controller... Apple will have to come out with a very compelling reason for me to buy an ATV 5.
I did notice that MRMC seems to play the one H.265 file I have pretty nice whereas my testing before would stutter... so I tried a different one and it stuttered therefore same observation as others where some work and some don't and they stutter.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/203824396-What-media-formats-are-supported-
AppleTV 4 on its way to becoming a paper weight or doorstop soon unless they get H.265 and 4K support happening in an upgrade. But $299 CAD for Xbox One S with 500GB HDD and a controller vs. $259 CAD for 64GB AppleTV with no controller... Apple will have to come out with a very compelling reason for me to buy an ATV 5.
I did notice that MRMC seems to play the one H.265 file I have pretty nice whereas my testing before would stutter... so I tried a different one and it stuttered therefore same observation as others where some work and some don't and they stutter.
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You can get some high-bitrate, high bit depth HEVC clips from here:
http://demo-uhd3d.com/categorie.php?tag=hevc
I just tried with a 5.2 MB/s (1.02 GB/44 minutes) h265 1080p file and while it played fine most of the time there were regular stutters "green screens" (although they are mostly grey) and dropped frames - way too much to be acceptable to watch. Obviously this was over the limit for what an ATV4 can handle.
Tried with both VLC and Infuse with similar results.
Tried with both VLC and Infuse with similar results.
Hi i.m new here, but also searching for a fix on hevc. The apple tv 4 is playing hevc without a problem. You can check this by buying the app abc player for the apple tv. It will play a movie (8gb) Avatar (hevc) without a problem, and many more.
But i'll ask myself, why infuse and vlc can't play the movies (without a problem), on the iPad air 2 (same specs as the apple tv) they play perfect. Succes with abc player.
I would agree with the aTV4 playing h.265 very well.
I had a 900mb 68 min TV rip that played perfect except for some artefacts after seeking in VLC. I have a stereo setup so I can't comment on audio. It's great to be able to download an h.265 TV rip and just play an MKV file without transcoding/remuxing. Higher bitrate stuff will skip of course so not a great idea for high bitrate movie rips but if you just want to watch an episode of a show and d/l it as quick as possible then h.265 beats h.264 hands down. haven't tried infuse. airvideo and plex are probably transcoding and definitely need a server running so not interested.
[doublepost=1483667193][/doublepost]someone should do a macbook (fanless) vs atv4 (fanless) VLC comparison, what's the highest bitrate h.265 file that decodes in software without stuttering? of course the atv costs a fraction of the macbook...
[doublepost=1483667785][/doublepost]the skylake in the macbook can do h.265 H/W decoding (and encoding!), but only under Windows
no h.265 H/W in iOS as far as I know.
[doublepost=1483668058][/doublepost]interesting article from a month ago
http://www.techspot.com/article/1131-hevc-h256-enconding-playback/ (dec 8)
"Here’s a quick rundown of popular media playing devices that don’t support HEVC:
Not only does Apple get to avoid writing the code, but more importantly, they don't have to pay a licence. H.265 licensing is still (unbelievably) up in the air.
[doublepost=1483669200][/doublepost]For what it's worth Netflix has made h.265 10bit (hdr) finally available on Windows PCs with kaby lake, skylake supports h.265 but 8bit only. I have a GeForce 1080 PC with h.265 10bit support but since my CPU is skylake I'm still waiting on Netflix/Microsoft/Nvidia to figure out the software to get it working.
I had a 900mb 68 min TV rip that played perfect except for some artefacts after seeking in VLC. I have a stereo setup so I can't comment on audio. It's great to be able to download an h.265 TV rip and just play an MKV file without transcoding/remuxing. Higher bitrate stuff will skip of course so not a great idea for high bitrate movie rips but if you just want to watch an episode of a show and d/l it as quick as possible then h.265 beats h.264 hands down. haven't tried infuse. airvideo and plex are probably transcoding and definitely need a server running so not interested.
[doublepost=1483667193][/doublepost]someone should do a macbook (fanless) vs atv4 (fanless) VLC comparison, what's the highest bitrate h.265 file that decodes in software without stuttering? of course the atv costs a fraction of the macbook...
[doublepost=1483667785][/doublepost]the skylake in the macbook can do h.265 H/W decoding (and encoding!), but only under Windows
no h.265 H/W in iOS as far as I know.[doublepost=1483668058][/doublepost]interesting article from a month ago
http://www.techspot.com/article/1131-hevc-h256-enconding-playback/ (dec 8)
"Here’s a quick rundown of popular media playing devices that don’t support HEVC:
- Google’s Chromecast (first and second generations)
- Apple TV (although some reports suggest 1080p HEVC playback is possible by running VLC on a 4th-gen model)
- Roku (third-gen models and earlier)
- Amazon Fire TV (2014) and Fire TV Stick
- Any Western Digital WD TV products
- All PlayStation consoles (including PS4 Pro)
- Xbox 360"
Not only does Apple get to avoid writing the code, but more importantly, they don't have to pay a licence. H.265 licensing is still (unbelievably) up in the air.
[doublepost=1483669200][/doublepost]For what it's worth Netflix has made h.265 10bit (hdr) finally available on Windows PCs with kaby lake, skylake supports h.265 but 8bit only. I have a GeForce 1080 PC with h.265 10bit support but since my CPU is skylake I'm still waiting on Netflix/Microsoft/Nvidia to figure out the software to get it working.
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Another user in videolan complain that the 1080p HEVC x265 encoded video freezes when playing on Apple TV 4 with VLC:
I tried to play a 1080p HEVC x265 - encoded video in MKV container on my Apple TV 4 using VLC, but the video freezes every 10 seconds approximately (with artifacts), then resumes. While it's playing, the quality is good (normal). Is this a known issue?
The video is streaming from a Synology NAS box SMB share with wired network to the Apple TV (no wireless). x264-encoded videos work fine over the same setup.
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=130451
I tried to play a 1080p HEVC x265 - encoded video in MKV container on my Apple TV 4 using VLC, but the video freezes every 10 seconds approximately (with artifacts), then resumes. While it's playing, the quality is good (normal). Is this a known issue?
The video is streaming from a Synology NAS box SMB share with wired network to the Apple TV (no wireless). x264-encoded videos work fine over the same setup.
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=130451
Whether the ATV chokes or not depends on the complexity of the encode, even a h264 480p DVD rip can be encoded to the point it chokes an AppleTV.
The capability of a device is listed as a "level" and "profile". If the content you push to the device meets but doesn't exceed the guidelines of that level and profile the device will be able to natively decode it.
The AppleTV 4K
Unfortunately the give and take relationship of the levels and profiles make it a little more complicated.
Making matters more confusing, a lot of server software will completely or partially transcode the media before the client. It can get tricky to tell what is actually doing the heavy lifting. Plus there isn't too much software out there for handling h265 for the AppleTV.
I've found the AppleTV does alright with h265, within reason anyway. Plays h265 4k main 10 =/<30fps without a problem using infuse. Infuse is nice because I can connect to my NAS that is incapable of decoding so I know the ATV is doing all the work.
However throw some really high quality at 60fps like this and it unplayable. I made a video to save you the trouble of the 1gb download.
My Samsung KS9000 using the built in media player app seems to play that relatively effortlessly (no noticeable stutter or dropped frames).
The capability of a device is listed as a "level" and "profile". If the content you push to the device meets but doesn't exceed the guidelines of that level and profile the device will be able to natively decode it.
The AppleTV 4K
Unfortunately the give and take relationship of the levels and profiles make it a little more complicated.
Making matters more confusing, a lot of server software will completely or partially transcode the media before the client. It can get tricky to tell what is actually doing the heavy lifting. Plus there isn't too much software out there for handling h265 for the AppleTV.
I've found the AppleTV does alright with h265, within reason anyway. Plays h265 4k main 10 =/<30fps without a problem using infuse. Infuse is nice because I can connect to my NAS that is incapable of decoding so I know the ATV is doing all the work.
However throw some really high quality at 60fps like this and it unplayable. I made a video to save you the trouble of the 1gb download.
My Samsung KS9000 using the built in media player app seems to play that relatively effortlessly (no noticeable stutter or dropped frames).