iMac Pro iMac Pro HEVC / H265

[BeatCrazy]

Skylake has no hardware 10-bit HEVC encode at all.
Kaby Lake has it (in the iGPU), but it's not supported on macOS (yet).

P.S. It's too bad we don't get hardware decode for VP9 on macOS.


Let us know what happens, but I suspect it will still be painfully slow on the iMac Pro, but not quite as painfully slow as the Skylake MacBook Pro.

OK so testing results are in

My test file is a 1080p .mp4 60-second clip that weighs in about 118Mb. I used Compressor 4.4 to export it to 4K 8-bit HEVC, and it took about 15 seconds on the iMac Pro. I feel pretty confident this is hardware acceleration from the Vega 56 GPU.

Next I took the same file and tried to export it as 4K 10-bit HEVC. This took a bit over 6 minutes, which implies software encode.

 

[Trebuin]

Using what program/hardware?

handbrake nightly

 

[EugW]

OK so testing results are in

My test file is a 1080p .mp4 60-second clip that weighs in about 118Mb. I used Compressor 4.4 to export it to 4K 8-bit HEVC, and it took about 15 seconds on the iMac Pro. I feel pretty confident this is hardware acceleration from the Vega 56 GPU.

Next I took the same file and tried to export it as 4K 10-bit HEVC. This took a bit over 6 minutes, which implies software decode.

software encode you mean?

 

[BeatCrazy]

software encode you mean?

Oops, yeah. Fixed

 

[anticipate]

OK so testing results are in

My test file is a 1080p .mp4 60-second clip that weighs in about 118Mb. I used Compressor 4.4 to export it to 4K 8-bit HEVC, and it took about 15 seconds on the iMac Pro. I feel pretty confident this is hardware acceleration from the Vega 56 GPU.

Next I took the same file and tried to export it as 4K 10-bit HEVC. This took a bit over 6 minutes, which implies software encode.

I can't even select the 8 bit option on my iMac Pro. It is red and says unsupported. How are you able to select that setting? Did you try 4K H.264 and go in and change the button to HEVC in the video settings? The Apple Devices 4K HEVC setting is unavailable to me.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I can't even select the 8 bit option on my iMac Pro. It is red and says unsupported. How are you able to select that setting? Did you try 4K H.264 and go in and change the button to HEVC in the video settings? The Apple Devices 4K HEVC setting is unavailable to me.

Shows available to me, on both my nTB Mac Pro, as well as the iMac Pro. See attached. I can also select HEVC as an option for Apple Devices 4K, but I have to select that preset, and configure it as a custom setting.

In other good news, I will be picking up my 2017 MacBook late today, so I'll try the same tests with it.

 

[anticipate]

Shows available to me, on both my nTB Mac Pro, as well as the iMac Pro. See attached. I can also select HEVC as an option for Apple Devices 4K, but I have to select that preset, and configure it as a custom setting. View attachment 747691 View attachment 747693

In other good news, I will be picking up my 2017 MacBook late today, so I'll try the same tests with it.

Thanks! I see what you point to on my iMP in Compressor 4.4, but it tells me it can't be used. It shows up as red and says it's not usable (though I think I forced it last night somehow). I'll try the 2nd method tonight of making a custom 4K template and clicking the HEVC button and seeing what happens. I don't have high hopes though; QT is just as slow doing that.

I am gratified to see H.264 exports are very fast though... faster than QS, and higher quality too!

...

EDIT: I just tested the 2017 MacBook. I encoded a 7 second 4K/60 ProRes 422 file to HEVC using the 8-bit setting which is not red and blocked out like it is on my iMac Pro. It took 58 seconds, so 8x slower than real time. The 10 bit setting took so long I just cancelled it.

Not sure what is going on here. There was a ton of "VRAM" use when encoding on the built in Intel GFX in 8 bit.

For reference, the iMac Pro is about 17x slower than real time on the 10-bit setting. The 8 bit setting I couldn't select.

Based on this information, I would say the MacBook is definitely using some kind of hardware encoding for 8-bit HEVC because the CPU is so slow it would otherwise take forever. It's still relatively slow, but it's still 10x faster than the iMac Pro's 10-bit score.

H.264 encoding on the iMac Pro definitely uses the GPU (about 20%) and it's super fast... 2x real time on 4K clips for single pass, and real time for dual pass high bitrate.

As it stands now, there doesn't seem to be any "accelerated" HEVC encoding on any Mac. the iMac Pro and 2017 MacBook DO hardware decode HEVC just fine. It's fast, and you can edit with it etc. H.264 exports are also very fast on both machines... using QS on the MB and who knows what (AMD something) on the iMac Pro.

HEVC exports are slow on both machines. But usable. If a 10x slowdown is ok.

I am curious what your findings are...

 

[BeatCrazy]

As it stands now, there doesn't seem to be any "accelerated" HEVC encoding on any Mac.


HEVC exports are slow on both machines. But usable. If a 10x slowdown is ok.

I am curious what your findings are...

HEVC 4K 8-bit encode is super fast on my iMac Pro. 15 seconds for a 118Mb 60-second clip. That has to be hardware accelerated.

 

[anticipate]

HEVC 4K 8-bit encode is super fast on my iMac Pro. 15 seconds for a 118Mb 60-second clip. That has to be hardware accelerated.

I'm not seeing that all, and neither is barefeats.com.

Something is amiss... hmmm. I will try to force 8 bit encoding again tonight and see if I do it independent of the preset if that works. Thanks for your help!

 

[BeatCrazy]

I'm not seeing that all, and neither is barefeats.com.

Something is amiss... hmmm. I will try to force 8 bit encoding again tonight and see if I do it independent of the preset if that works. Thanks for your help!

I used the Apple Devices 4K (HEVC 8-bit) preset to get that fast result. I don't think I tried with a custom version of that.

 

[h9826790]

I'm not seeing that all, and neither is barefeats.com.

Something is amiss... hmmm. I will try to force 8 bit encoding again tonight and see if I do it independent of the preset if that works. Thanks for your help!

It seems barefeats didn't test the HEVC 8bit encoding speed (yet). They only tested H264 and HEVC 10bit.

The H264 result suggested that it's hardware accelerated. Because it's much faster than all the Mac Pro, and little bit faster than the hardware accelerated 5K iMac.

The HEVC 10bit shows all Mac can only use software encode. Therefore iMac Pro 10C is the fastest, much fastest than the unaccelerated 5K iMac, and also easily beat all the Mac Pro by it's raw power.

And in both case, the self upgraded Vega 64 (PC version) on the Mac Pro cannot provide any hardware encode, but just assist the rendering.

Anyway, I just opened up the Compressor on my Mac Pro (NOT iMac Pro). The HEVC 8bit option is there. And it seems without a "compatible" GPU (either iGPU or Vega), this options will be broken. But the more demanding HEVC 10bit still available (because only software encoding is available, which won't stop any Mac to use that?).

 

[BeatCrazy]

Anyway, I just opened up the Compressor on my Mac Pro (NOT iMac Pro). The HEVC 8bit option is there. And it seems without a "compatible" GPU (either iGPU or Vega), this options will be broken. But the more demanding HEVC 10bit still available (because only software encoding is available, which won't stop any Mac to use that?).
View attachment 747716

Then why do I get the 8-bit 4K HEVC option on my ‘16 nTB MacBook Pro? Because it’s using the Skylake Quick Sync? Doesn’t your iMac have QS?

 

[h9826790]

Then why do I get the 8-bit 4K HEVC option on my ‘16 nTB MacBook Pro? Because it’s using the Skylake Quick Sync? Doesn’t your iMac have QS?

Yes, because of the Skylake QuickSync.

I am using the Mac Pro (Xeon W3690 as per my signature), not the iMac. And I choose to upgrade to the Nvidia 1080Ti, but not the AMD Vega.

So no Intel QuickSync available to me. And I cannot edit any system file to see if I can activate the Vega's hardware encoding support.

At this moment, I can only use hardware encoding in Windows.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Yes, because of the Skylake QuickSync.

I am using the Mac Pro (Xeon W3690 as per my signature), not the iMac. And I choose to upgrade to the Nvidia 1080Ti, but not the AMD Vega.

So no Intel QuickSync available to me. And I cannot edit any system file to see if I can activate the Vega's hardware encoding support.

At this moment, I can only use hardware encoding in Windows.

Ah that makes sense. And I’m reading on mobile so didn’t see your sig

 

[anticipate]

It seems barefeats didn't test the HEVC 8bit encoding speed (yet). They only tested H264 and HEVC 10bit.

The H264 result suggested that it's hardware accelerated. Because it's much faster than all the Mac Pro, and little bit faster than the hardware accelerated 5K iMac.

The HEVC 10bit shows all Mac can only use software encode. Therefore iMac Pro 10C is the fastest, much fastest than the unaccelerated 5K iMac, and also easily beat all the Mac Pro by it's raw power.

And in both case, the self upgraded Vega 64 (PC version) on the Mac Pro cannot provide any hardware encode, but just assist the rendering.

Anyway, I just opened up the Compressor on my Mac Pro (NOT iMac Pro). The HEVC 8bit option is there. And it seems without a "compatible" GPU (either iGPU or Vega), this options will be broken. But the more demanding HEVC 10bit still available (because only software encoding is available, which won't stop any Mac to use that?).
View attachment 747716

I see the same thing. The red “Unsupported” 8 bit HEVC. But on my iMac Pro....
[doublepost=1516418531][/doublepost]

I used the Apple Devices 4K (HEVC 8-bit) preset to get that fast result. I don't think I tried with a custom version of that.

I can’t use it on my iMP. Says unsupported...

 

[BeatCrazy]

I see the same thing. The red “Unsupported” 8 bit HEVC. But on my iMac Pro....


I can’t use it on my iMP. Says unsupported...

I wonder if it depends what kind of media you were trying to encode? I was using a 1080p file.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Any more news/testing on 8/10-bit HEVC?

 

[Oto Rhino]

Hi all

I tried 2 of the linked videos (jellyfish + ok_h264_Panasonic_Lumix_Demo) : both running smoothly with QuickTime, IINA and VLC. All three programs used around 11% CPU. Easy game...
Test case : my old Mac Pro 4.1 dual quad core 2.26 Ghz (the low end 8core !), video displayed on the 30" cinema display in full screen.

Hope it helps,
Renaud

 

[h9826790]

Hi all

I tried 2 of the linked videos (jellyfish + ok_h264_Panasonic_Lumix_Demo) : both running smoothly with QuickTime, IINA and VLC. All three programs used around 11% CPU. Easy game...
Test case : my old Mac Pro 4.1 dual quad core 2.26 Ghz (the low end 8core !), video displayed on the 30" cinema display in full screen.

Hope it helps,
Renaud

I think you may download the wrong testing video, we were talk about 4K H265 8bit or 10bit video. Not the other HD or H264 videos.

 

[anticipate]

I wonder if it depends what kind of media you were trying to encode? I was using a 1080p file.

I don't see it as an option to use on my iMac Pro even without putting a file into it to transcode. I deleted compressor and reinstalled it, and I still get this:

So weird.
[doublepost=1516664758][/doublepost]

It seems barefeats didn't test the HEVC 8bit encoding speed (yet). They only tested H264 and HEVC 10bit.

The H264 result suggested that it's hardware accelerated. Because it's much faster than all the Mac Pro, and little bit faster than the hardware accelerated 5K iMac.

The HEVC 10bit shows all Mac can only use software encode. Therefore iMac Pro 10C is the fastest, much fastest than the unaccelerated 5K iMac, and also easily beat all the Mac Pro by it's raw power.

And in both case, the self upgraded Vega 64 (PC version) on the Mac Pro cannot provide any hardware encode, but just assist the rendering.

Anyway, I just opened up the Compressor on my Mac Pro (NOT iMac Pro). The HEVC 8bit option is there. And it seems without a "compatible" GPU (either iGPU or Vega), this options will be broken. But the more demanding HEVC 10bit still available (because only software encoding is available, which won't stop any Mac to use that?).
View attachment 747716

I aww the exact same thing on 8-bit on my iMac Pro. the iMP, base Vega 56 model.

EDIT: I also tested the nightly build of Handbrake. It's much faster than Compressor (3x slower than real time vs 10x+ slower via compressor), but I am not seeing any GPU use there either.

I don't know how you guys are seeing hardware accelerated HEVC encodes on iMac Pro. I can't select 8-bit at all, and nothing else seems accelerated. And this is a fresh install of the OS and Compressor!

H264 IS accelerated - 2X real time in single pass, real time in dual pass (for 4K), which is QS speed but better quality. It shows constant GPU use. (This was not true with the 2013 MP, which was slow.)

HEVC -playback- is also clearly accelerated, with low CPU use and constant GPU use.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

10.13.3 enables HDR10 HEVC decoding on AMD Polaris. Vega should have support too.

The efficiency, scrubbing and responsiveness is actually better than my gaming PC that has a 1080 Ti.

Edit : Dependent on bit rate. Some videos work better than others.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I don't see it as an option to use on my iMac Pro even without putting a file into it to transcode. I deleted compressor and reinstalled it, and I still get this:

So weird.

Something is definitely up. I've now tried Compressor on 3 of my Macs, and all of them have the option for both 8 and 10 bit HEVC encode. Still no improvement on 10-bit encodes on 10.13.3, with unbearably long encode times.

10.13.3 enables HDR10 HEVC decoding on AMD Polaris. Vega should have support too.

The efficiency, scrubbing and responsiveness is actually better than my gaming PC that has a 1080 Ti.

Edit : Dependent on bit rate. Some videos work better than others.

Vegas have had HEVC decoding since 10.13.2, e.g. when the iMac Pro came out?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Something is definitely up. I've now tried Compressor on 3 of my Macs, and all of them have the option for both 8 and 10 bit HEVC encode. Still no improvement on 10-bit encodes on 10.13.3, with unbearably long encode times.



Vegas have had HEVC decoding since 10.13.2, e.g. when the iMac Pro came out?

One correction. REC 709 performance is good, but REC 2020 playback is still jerky on Polaris.

 

[anticipate]

Something is definitely up. I've now tried Compressor on 3 of my Macs, and all of them have the option for both 8 and 10 bit HEVC encode. Still no improvement on 10-bit encodes on 10.13.3, with unbearably long encode times.

Vegas have had HEVC decoding since 10.13.2, e.g. when the iMac Pro came out?

Yeah thanks BeatCrazy. Decode also isn't an issue for me... hardware decode has been active on 10.13.2 with vega. It's just the 8 bit HEVC ENcoding setting in compressor that doesn't work on my iMP (in 10.13.2; I am afraid to try 10.13.3 because it killed all my USB attached storage on a beta).

I do have HEVC 8-bit encoding available on my lowly 12" Kaby Lake MacBook though.

 

[anticipate]

Before I report tp Apple, I just wanted to confirm with you iMac Pro owners... can you in fact use the 8-bit HEVC option in Compressor 4.4? It is not an option on my iMac Pro.