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iOS/iPadOS 14 and VP9 support [Merged]

EugW

EugW

macrumors P6
Original poster
Jun 18, 2017
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Some questions about VP9 support in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14:

1. This is hardware VP9 support, right?
2. If hardware VP9, which hardware? How far back in terms of Ax chips is this VP9 support included?
3. If VP9 is not supported in hardware, is there software fallback? Do the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 support VP9 in some form?
4. Is the VP9 support only with YouTube, or can other applications make use of this?
5. Does the VP9 support work in Safari and other browsers in video players (including embedded YouTube)?
6. Can you drag and drop VP9 in to iOS/iPadOS 14 video editors with full hardware decode support?
7. Is VP9 HDR supported? If so, is there automatic HDR to SDR dithering (for iDevices that need it)?
 
melancholy said:
Yes
Click to expand...
Care to elaborate?

It'd be a pleasant surprise to me if the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 had hardware VP9 support. Neither support hardware HEVC decode for example. (Actually technically they even support real-time HEVC encoding, as A8 in the iPhone 6 leveraged HEVC for FaceTime video, but Apple doesn't expose this support for other HEVC video playback.)
 
FaceTime is 720p max, though. We know that A9 doesn’t have HEVC hardware encode. Possible that those earlier models are just handling it via software.

> 2. If hardware VP9, which hardware? How far back in terms of Ax chips is this VP9 support included?

Here’s one data point: 10.2” iPad 7th gen (Apple A10, 3GB RAM, 2160x1620) still limited to 1080p on iPadOS 14 dev beta 1
 
rui no onna said:
Here’s one data point: 10.2” iPad 7th gen (Apple A10, 3GB RAM, 2160x1620) still limited to 1080p on iPadOS 14 dev beta 1
Click to expand...

My 12.9 iPad Pro 2020 with iPadOS 14 dev beta 1 -> does still NOT play any YouTube videos in higher than FullHD
My iPhone 11 Pro Max with iPadOS 14 dev beta 1 -> this one DOES play YouTube videos in higher than FullHD res.

Anyone a clue for what reason? Thanks
 
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vobele said:
My 12.9 iPad Pro 2020 with iPadOS 14 dev beta 1 -> does still NOT play any YouTube videos in higher than FullHD
My iPhone 11 Pro Max with iPadOS 14 dev beta 1 -> this one DOES play YouTube videos in higher than FullHD res.

Anyone a clue for what reason? Thanks
Click to expand...
Beta bugs I imagine...
 
vobele said:
My 12.9 iPad Pro 2020 with iPadOS 14 dev beta 1 -> does still NOT play any YouTube videos in higher than FullHD
My iPhone 11 Pro Max with iPadOS 14 dev beta 1 -> this one DOES play YouTube videos in higher than FullHD res.

Anyone a clue for what reason? Thanks
Click to expand...
Hmm, maybe they enabled it on iPhones first?
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wortex said:
how do you tested, in youtube app?
Click to expand...
Tested both app and in Safari on my iPad.
 
ok, so on my iphone xs max youtube 2k, on ipad pro 10.5 1080p, so iphone only
 
Yes, exactly. Strange they test it on smaller devices first. Hopefully it makes it‘s way into both final OS releases.
 
rui no onna said:
Here’s one data point: 10.2” iPad 7th gen (Apple A10, 3GB RAM, 2160x1620) still limited to 1080p on iPadOS 14 dev beta 1
Click to expand...
wortex said:
ok, so on my iphone xs max youtube 2k, on ipad pro 10.5 1080p, so iphone only
Click to expand...

A10X in AppleTV 4K supports 4K YouTube in tvOS 14.


rui no onna said:
FaceTime is 720p max, though. We know that A9 doesn’t have HEVC hardware encode. Possible that those earlier models are just handling it via software.
Click to expand...
I'd be shocked if the A8 iPhone 6 handled FaceTime HEVC encode in software. The chip is too slow, even at 720p.

I'd guess the hardware is present in A9 too, just disabled via software.

P.S. Some have postulated it's AV1 not VP9, but I'm not convinced about that since the official spec of AV1 only came out in 2018, and A10 came out in 2016. I can't rule that out though.
 
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EugW said:
I'd be shocked if the A8 iPhone 6 handled FaceTime HEVC encode in software. The chip is too slow, even at 720p.

I'd guess the hardware is present in A9 too, just disabled via software.

P.S. Some have postulated it's AV1 not VP9, but I'm not convinced about that since the official spec of AV1 only came out in 2018, and A10 came out in 2016. I can't rule that out though.
Click to expand...
The camera app on Apple A9 and lower doesn’t use HEVC and HEIC encoding while that was enabled on later firmwares for Apple A10.

Hmm, perhaps the GPU on the A8 and A9 can do partial hardware acceleration for HEVC encoding? Not the entire pipeline but enough to reduce the burden on the CPU so it can handle 720p or lower.

As for AV1 vs VP9, do we actually have confirmed reports of YouTube 4K on a device with A10 chipset? On this thread, we have XS Max and 11 Pro Max.
 
rui no onna said:
As for AV1 vs VP9, do we actually have confirmed reports of YouTube 4K on a device with A10 chipset? On this thread, we have XS Max and 11 Pro Max.
Click to expand...
I mentioned above that it works on AppleTV 4K with A10X. Technically A10X didn't come out until 2017, but it would have to have been in development for years before that, and as mentioned the AV1 spec was not finalized until 2018.
 
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EugW said:
I mentioned above that it works on AppleTV 4K with A10X. Technically A10X didn't come out until 2017, but it would have to have been in development for years before that, and as mentioned the AV1 spec was not finalized until 2018.
Click to expand...
Apple’s part of the alliance, though. Even if AV1 was finalized later, maybe Apple already incorporated some of the building blocks in their chipsets.

Would also be interesting to learn if any distinctions will be made between X and non-X chipsets.
 
rui no onna said:
FaceTime is 720p max, though. We know that A9 doesn’t have HEVC hardware encode. Possible that those earlier models are just handling it via software.

> 2. If hardware VP9, which hardware? How far back in terms of Ax chips is this VP9 support included?

Here’s one data point: 10.2” iPad 7th gen (Apple A10, 3GB RAM, 2160x1620) still limited to 1080p on iPadOS 14 dev beta 1
Click to expand...

But now with the new OS, FaceTime now can do 1080p, depending on the Models who’s front facing camera can record in 1080p
 
Homme said:
But now with the new OS, FaceTime now can do 1080p, depending on the Models who’s front facing camera can record in 1080p
Click to expand...
Thanks. Didn’t know FaceTime’s been upgraded.

That said, all the models with 1080p front facing camera all have 4K HEVC hardware encoding anyway.
 
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EugW said:
Some questions about VP9 support in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14:

1. This is hardware VP9 support, right?
2. If hardware VP9, which hardware? How far back in terms of Ax chips is this VP9 support included?
3. If VP9 is not supported in hardware, is there software fallback? Do the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 support VP9 in some form?
4. Is the VP9 support only with YouTube, or can other applications make use of this?
5. Does the VP9 support work in Safari and other browsers in video players (including embedded YouTube)?
6. Can you drag and drop VP9 in to iOS/iPadOS 14 video editors with full hardware decode support?
7. Is VP9 HDR supported? If so, is there automatic HDR to SDR dithering (for iDevices that need it)?
Click to expand...

I think 4K on YouTube only works on HDR videos such as this one (see the screenshot below) using VP9.2 codec which is used for HDR videos on YouTube. I suspect that you probably need a HDR capable device to watch it. If your device is not HDR compatible, you won't be shown the option for it. Unfortunately, they do not appear to support normal SDR 4K videos on iOS or iPadOS yet. At least, I couldn't get them to work yet on my iPhone Xs running iOS14 DP1. Also, YouTube on Safari only goes up to 720p using H.264 so Safari doesn't seem to take advantage of this functionality yet. They recently added HDR media capabilities to Safari on v14 but they do not mention if it's only limited to HEVC.

4K_HDR_VP9.PNG
 
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Birkan said:
I think 4K on YouTube only works on HDR videos such as this one (see the screenshot below) using VP9.2 codec which is used for HDR videos on YouTube. I suspect that you probably need a HDR capable device to watch it. If your device is not HDR compatible, you won't be shown the option for it. Unfortunately, they do not appear to support normal SDR 4K videos on iOS or iPadOS yet. At least, I couldn't get them to work yet on my iPhone Xs running iOS14 DP1. Also, YouTube on Safari only goes up to 720p using H.264 so Safari doesn't seem to take advantage of this functionality yet. They recently added HDR media capabilities to Safari on v14 but they do not mention if it's only limited to HEVC.

View attachment 929083
Click to expand...
That video and Costa Rica 4K were two of the videos I tried to play on iPadOS 14 DB1.

Tried on both a 10.2” iPad 7th gen as well as an iPad Pro 12.9 (2nd gen, 2017). Safari and YouTube app only allowed up to 1080p60. The iPad 10.2 doesn’t support HDR content but the iPP 12.9 should support HDR10 and Dolby Vision playback.
 
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rui no onna said:
That video and Costa Rica 4K were two of the videos I tried to play on iPadOS 14 DB1.

Tried on both a 10.2” iPad 7th gen as well as an iPad Pro 12.9 (2nd gen, 2017). Safari and YouTube app only allowed up to 1080p60. The iPad 10.2 doesn’t support HDR content but the iPP 12.9 should support HDR10 and Dolby Vision playback.
Click to expand...
I wonder if there is a server side switch considering that your iPP 12.9 does indeed support HDR10 and Dolby Vision according to Apple. Another possibility is that HDR playback only got activated for OLED HDR devices. It would be very nice if a developer can actually check if the AVFoundation or Videotoolbox got updated with VP9 or HDR support. If it did, maybe the support might come to Safari on the Mac since they support full HW VP9 decode since Kaby Lake.
 
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Cult of Mac has also written about 4K YouTube videos being available on iPhone/iPad too. They didn’t provide any new information or proof that it’s rolling out to all .4K videos though.
 
EugW said:
How are you showing the specs in iOS? Or was that on a computer?
Click to expand...

Open iOS/iPadOS YouTube app > account settings > turn “stats for nerds” on.

Then go to the video you want to watch, hit the menu button (where you get to quality/captions/playback speed settings) and then tap “Stats for nerds” and you should see what I had pulled up.
 
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We have a 11” and 12.9” iPad Pro 2020 model running the beta as well as my iPhone 11 Pro Max. The 11 Pro Max has 4K youtube while logged into my YT Premium account. Weirdly, both iPads won’t show 4k video as an option if I’m logged into the same YT account, but if I log out, boom, there’s 4K. Weird. Looks gorgeous, especially on the 12.9“ iPP, and the iPads don’t seem to be breaking a sweat even with multitasking. I’d have to imagine this selective appearance is all beta bug based and that this is likely worthy of an official formal announcement in the fall.
 
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