iPad iPad Air 2: iPhone 4K video has (!) beside it in Photos Import and I can't import it * Cuz it's HEVC

[EugW]

Hi there. I was doing some video imports for speed comparisons of my iPad Air 2 vs. my iPad Pro 10.5". I don't plan on doing any video editing on the iPad Air 2 but I just wanted to test it. The thread post about the iPad file import speeds is here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...i-4-mini-5-ipad-pro-11.2176211/#post-27264408

Not surprisingly, the import speeds were much faster on the iPad Pro 10.5" and all imports were fine. However, on the iPad Air 2, after it tries to import, I'd get a red (!) on the thumbnail of the video, and the file won't save to the Air 2.

The file is a 4Kp30 HEVC h.265 video recorded on my iPhone 7 Plus. Is the (!) an indication that it is HEVC file on an iPad that doesn't have hardware HEVC decoding? I do know these file play fine in other software like Infuse on the iPad Air 2 (albeit with a lot of battery usage since it's software decoding) but perhaps Photos just doesn't want to even go there.

EDIT:

It's because it's h.265 HEVC. I tried an h.264 file and imported fine, while another h.265 file I tried also would not import.

 

[AutomaticApple]

Not surprisingly, the import speeds were much faster on the iPad Pro 10.5" and all imports were fine. However, on the iPad Air 2, after it tries to import, I'd get a red (!) on the thumbnail of the video, and the file won't save to the Air 2.

The iPad Pro blows the iPad Air 2 out of the dust.

 

[EugW]

I thought it was a hardware incompatibility with a USB 3 card reader with my UDMA Transcend 600X CompactFlash card. See here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...i-4-mini-5-ipad-pro-11.2176211/#post-27264905

However, even after switching to an old USB 2 card reader which allowed me to load photos successfully, it still wouldn't work with this 4Kp30 HEVC video.

 

[sinoka56]

iPad Air 2 doesn't support HEVC, it has A8 chip.

 

[EugW]

iPad Air 2 doesn't support HEVC, it has A8 chip.

A8X and yes I know it doesn't have hardware support for HEVC, but it does play play back iPhone 4K HEVC fine in software, as it works fine in other applications (albeit with much increased battery drain).

What I'm wondering is if the Photos importing issue is a glitch or if it's intentional to prevent 4K HEVC files from importing.

 

[EugW]

A8X and yes I know it doesn't have hardware support for HEVC, but it does play play back iPhone 4K HEVC fine in software, as it works fine in other applications (albeit with much increased battery drain).

What I'm wondering is if the Photos importing issue is a glitch or if it's intentional to prevent 4K HEVC files from importing.

Confirmed the latter. Photos on the iPad Air 2 will not accept HEVC files. I recorded 4K videos in h.264 and in h.265, and only the h.264 will sync with Photos on an iPad Air 2.