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macOS 11 Big Sur Safari YouTube 4K HDR VP9 support
- Thread starter EugW
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Thanks for confirming. Mine is 5700 XT. Video was incredibly jerky and the GPU became very loud. The video I played was the Best of 8K video on the previous page.
Would be good to see more reports.
For for that 8K video in Safari Big Sur Beta 5:
On my 2017 27" iMac Core i5-7600 quad-core (no HT) with Intel HD Graphics 630 at 1.15 GHz and Radeon Pro 575, I get no HDR options, but it goes all the way up to 8K.
4K non-HDR playback is perfectly smooth, with about 15-25% overall CPU usage.
8K non-HDR playback is a slideshow, but with only about 5-10% overall CPU usage (probably because not much is actually playing).
On my 2017 12" MacBook Core m3-7Y32 dual-core (HT) with Intel HD Graphics 615 at 900 MHz (?), it's similar. Again I get no HDR options, but it goes all the way up to 8K.
4K non-HDR playback is perfectly smooth, with about 20-30% overall CPU usage.
8K non-HDR playback is a slideshow, but with only about 10-20% overall CPU usage (probably because not much is actually playing).
I guess both are running off Intel graphics, with similar results. 8K is simply too much for their dedicated decoder hardware, which is not surprising since these iGPUs are specifically designed to support up to 4K. In the specs, both Intel iGPUs support a maximum resolution of 4Kp60, although technically it's 2304p60 on the iMac and 2160p60 on the MacBook.
The iMac remained silent through all of this. So did the MacBook, but the MacBook is fanless. 🤪
What machine?
MBP 2018.
Beta 4 could decode that 8K video on the weak 560X without a problem. The option now only appears connected to the eGPU.
That would be great. Please also let us know whether you use a DisplayPort or HDMI connected display and what resolution the display has.
On beta 5 and that video on my MacBookPro 13" mid 2014 (CPU=4278U/Iris 5100):
I don't get the HDR option.
4k60 plays smoothly on my internal display, and also on my 4k TV (but the output is with refresh rate of 30Hz) over HDMI. CPU usage is 40-70%
8k60 plays, it looks very good but plays at what seem to be half speed, and looses sync with audio, but the player seem unable to catch this, so should probably dropped every second frame but says no frame dropped. When I press the pause button in Youtube the video keeps playing until it catches up to where it should have been.
Edit, new in beta 5 is that embedded HDR VP9 now plays and don't fail as in beta 4.
I did try Firefox nightly on the same video, and 8k does come as an option, but is like a slide show, updating every 10 seconds, 4k is somewhat better, but I have go to 1440p to have smooth playback.
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Is the video playback smooth? What is your CPU?
it’s not a good idea to compare the beta test on a Hackintosh to a Mac, especially the laptops. We have to test the Apple hardware not just the software during beta testing.
I’m seeing that there is no VP9 GPU acceleration at all when I use the 5700 XT eGPU. Even though the graphics card becomes very loud the Activity Monitor shows that the Intel 630 iGPU is trying to do all the work. Bad bug. The eGPU should be doing all the work.
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Yeah absolutely smooth but it always has been. 8700k is powerful enough.
Interesting observation: I was using the Adder framebuffer of the Radeon Pro W5700X of the Mac Pro. Now I tried it with the generic RadeonFramebuffer and the 8k option is gone. So it looks like availability of the 8k option is dependent on the framebuffer and GPU that is active.
On the Radeon VII 8k is available with RadeonFramebuffer.
Edit: This is with RadeonVII and default RadeonFramebuffer. 8k available again but also appears to be CPU decoded:
In Beta 4 it used GPU decoding, CPU load was low. They changed something it seems.
Interesting observation: I was using the Adder framebuffer of the Radeon Pro W5700X of the Mac Pro. Now I tried it with the generic RadeonFramebuffer and the 8k option is gone. So it looks like availability of the 8k option is dependent on the framebuffer and GPU that is active.
On the Radeon VII 8k is available with RadeonFramebuffer.
Edit: This is with RadeonVII and default RadeonFramebuffer. 8k available again but also appears to be CPU decoded:
In Beta 4 it used GPU decoding, CPU load was low. They changed something it seems.
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BTW, here is a screengrab of my CPU and iGPU utilization on the 2017 MacBook Core m3, playing that 8K video at 4K 8-bit.
My 13" Late 2013 stock 2.4 GHz rMBP also plays 8K with only 7 dropped frames halfway through with Developer Beta 5. Regular Intel Iris and only 8 GB RAM.
Apple must have gotten Intel to update their iGPU drivers on the Mac side to fully support Intel Quick Sync; so it's likely Intel hardware acceleration tweaked to work under macOS.
And of course, Apple made sure Safari has access to the proper hardware accelerated APIs to allow the 8K playback.
According to Wikipedia, Apple has had QuickSync / macOS support since Mountain Lion for Airplay, FaceTime, iTunes, Safari, QuickTime X, iMovie, Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor.
Tried to do the same on a mid-2015 rMBP 2.2 GHz machine running Mojave; can only get resolution as high as 1080P.
Apple must have gotten Intel to update their iGPU drivers on the Mac side to fully support Intel Quick Sync; so it's likely Intel hardware acceleration tweaked to work under macOS.
And of course, Apple made sure Safari has access to the proper hardware accelerated APIs to allow the 8K playback.
According to Wikipedia, Apple has had QuickSync / macOS support since Mountain Lion for Airplay, FaceTime, iTunes, Safari, QuickTime X, iMovie, Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor.
Tried to do the same on a mid-2015 rMBP 2.2 GHz machine running Mojave; can only get resolution as high as 1080P.
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Intel has to be involved because Apple didn't develop the Iris Integrated Graphics GPU or the decoding hardware built into the GPU.
Intel has to have given them information about how to access the hardware acceleration;
You're right in that Apple probably had to write the drivers for macOS but they need the opcodes/methods for accessing the GPU hardware from Intel, because there's no way the CPU on a seven year old machine is driving an 8K stream unassisted.
Intel has to have given them information about how to access the hardware acceleration;
You're right in that Apple probably had to write the drivers for macOS but they need the opcodes/methods for accessing the GPU hardware from Intel, because there's no way the CPU on a seven year old machine is driving an 8K stream unassisted.
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lol of course they provide Apple with information. I was talking solely about drivers development which is entirely done by Apple. If Intel would develop the macOS drivers, the same kind of acceleration would be available for other OSes as well. Yet it isn't. Playing this 8k video on Windows 10 with my MacBook Pro I get 5fps at best with the majority of frames being dropped. Officially the Quick Sync blocks of the Broadwell GPUs don't even support VP9 or any kind of 8k resolution. It's kind of magic what Apple is achieving there.
Makes me wonder why they haven't delivered this earlier. People have been crying for VP9 acceleration for ages and they always ignored it. And now they suddenly do it better than anyone else right before they are going to drop Intel and AMD GPUs anyhow. Doesn't make much sense to me.
Makes me wonder why they haven't delivered this earlier. People have been crying for VP9 acceleration for ages and they always ignored it. And now they suddenly do it better than anyone else right before they are going to drop Intel and AMD GPUs anyhow. Doesn't make much sense to me.
Now im completely confused. I see that i can play youtube 4k HDR on my MBP 16 display. But on my external monitor with activated HDR i just get 4K (except in chrome, edge where i can play HDR on my external monitor).
I always thought the MBP 16 Display don't have HDR support?
I always thought the MBP 16 Display don't have HDR support?
It has wide colour gamut. It’s not HDR but your screen shows more than basic SDR screens.
Intro to wide color gamut and HDR in Final Cut Pro for Mac
In Final Cut Pro for Mac, you can choose between Standard and Wide Gamut HDR color spaces.
support.apple.com
Plus, it is nice to be able to play HDR content on any screen if all you have access to is the HDR stream. This doesn’t apply just to YouTube but say you have a 4K HDR VP9 file but only a 1080p SDR screen. It is good to be able to play the file and dither and downscale the video on the fly so it still looks good on your SDR screen.
If it’s not properly dithered, HDR will look washed out, which I believe is still a problem with VP9 in Big Sur beta.
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ST.2084 gamma profile is what HDR requires. If you have a HDR television or display that supports this gamma then the HDR option will appear in Big Sur’s Display preference pane.
In the new version of Safari the YouTube HDR content displays a kind of simulated ST.2084. If you look at the video stats you will see it says ‘BT.1886/ST.2084’ meaning it is hybridising both profiles with a dithering technique so that it looks like pure ST.2084. Safari does a pretty good job of doing this on a MacBook Pro display that is wide gamut but doesn’t natively support ST.2084.
Late 2013 to Mid 2015 rMBPs all use Haswell, the only rMBP that got Broadwell was the 13-inch 2015 rMBP, even then 3.1 GHz and 2 cores, LOL.
But yeah, I'm looking at the QS chart and VP9 is not in the grid for Haswell or Broadwell for hardware decode at all. And yet there it is right in the screenshots being posted, and playback is smooth (relatively on my older, am going to try to put BS on a 3.1 GHz i7 2015 rMBP and see if it improves..
It might be either a bone they're throwing to Intel machines or something some engineer snuck into the APIs, remember this is still a beta.. that 8K playback might be something they yank in the final release.. Apple has pulled crap like that before.
Let's see if 9to5Mac or MacRumors posts an article like "Big Sur Beta 5 brings 8K playback to pre-2015 Mac laptops" that would be sure to get Apple to remove it. 'Oh that was just an engineering experiment'
15" 2018 MB Pro 1TB with 16 gigs of RAM on battery and using the Intel integrated graphics. Stuttered at the beginning and then smoothed out. I guess it was buffering something. Safari on developer beta 5 at full screen.
