Archive:HEVC: Difference between revisions

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HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) is a new video compression format. It was formalized on the 25th of November 2013 and published as [http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=35424 ISO/IEC 23008-2:2013].  
'''[[w:High Efficiency Video Coding|HEVC]]''' (High Efficiency Video Coding, sometimes called ''H.265'') is a new video compression format and is the successor of H.264. It was formalized on the 25th of November 2013 and published as [http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=35424 ISO/IEC 23008-2:2013]. An open source HEVC decoder and encoder ([http://x265.org/ x265]) has been developed and is widely adopted.
It is the successor of H.264 and is sometimes called ''H.265'', although that name was discarded by the commission. Work on the open source HEVC decoder and encoder ([http://x265.org/ x265]) is still being done, but a proposed implementation of the codec has been made available.


You can read more about the format on Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding here].
== Support in {{kodi}} ==
Kodi v14 ([[Kodi v14 (Helix) changelog|changelog]]) introduced software decoding support for HEVC. Kodi v15 ([[Kodi v15 (Isengard) changelog|changelog]]) introduced limited hardware decoding support for some devices, such as a few Android-based video decoders, for Linux on [[Amlogic]] SoCs and for Windows via DXVA. Kodi v16 ([[Kodi v16 (Jarvis) changelog|changelog]]) further improved hardware decoding on Android and Windows and introduced it via [[wikipedia:VAAPI|VAAPI]] and [[wikipedia:VDPAU|VDPAU]] API on linux. Most HTPCs do not have hardware decoding support for HEVC, so they will need a fairly powerful desktop class CPU in order to playback HEVC videos.


== Support in XBMC ==
[[Category:Video library]]
As of this moment time (January/February 2014) XBMC doesn't suppport the HEVC codec. Support will come when an update of FFmpeg is applied to DVDPlayer (XBMC's video player component).
{{Updated|16}}
 
=== Support in FFmpeg ===
The FFmpeg maintainers included support for the proposed version of the HEVC decoder in FFmpeg version 2.1.
 
This version of FFmpeg is not in use in the most recent builds of XBMC and, since we are not allowing any more new features to go in to v13 'Gotham' development (we are in ''feature freeze''), this feature will '''not''' make it into XBMC 13.0. We are, of course, planning to upgrade FFmpeg to a higher version but this will happen after 13.0 has been released.
 
=== Planning ===
A first test to upgrade FFmpeg to the latest version resulted in a severe memory leak which caused 16GB of memory usage within 20 minutes. Obviously these issues need to be resolved before you will see a version with FFmpeg 2.1, and there are developers working on it, but the main focus at this point in time is on releasing XBMC 13.0 'Gotham'
 
By the time the x265 encoder is finalised and people start using it widely there will be support for it in XBMC, but at this moment we are not there yet. Therefore the best suggestion is to avoid using this encoder for the moment if you intend to play your creations with XBMC.
 
== Hardware acceleration ==
There are very few hardware video decoding options out on the market right now, which means that any HEVC decoding, XBMC or not, will require a fairly recent and powerful desktop-class processor.
 
[[Category:Video Library]]
{{frodo updated}}

Revision as of 05:48, 17 September 2016

HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, sometimes called H.265) is a new video compression format and is the successor of H.264. It was formalized on the 25th of November 2013 and published as ISO/IEC 23008-2:2013. An open source HEVC decoder and encoder (x265) has been developed and is widely adopted.

Support in Kodi

Kodi v14 (changelog) introduced software decoding support for HEVC. Kodi v15 (changelog) introduced limited hardware decoding support for some devices, such as a few Android-based video decoders, for Linux on Amlogic SoCs and for Windows via DXVA. Kodi v16 (changelog) further improved hardware decoding on Android and Windows and introduced it via VAAPI and VDPAU API on linux. Most HTPCs do not have hardware decoding support for HEVC, so they will need a fairly powerful desktop class CPU in order to playback HEVC videos.