HEVC output is not playable by QuickTime on macOS 10.13 High Sierra Beta 6

[ntodd]

Using transcode-video --handbrake-option encoder=x265 --mp4 I am unable to create a file that can be played back by QuickTime on 10.13. It appears the output is not compatible with the upcoming HEVC support in macOS. I have not tested playback on iOS 11 beta yet.

video_transcoding 0.17.3
macOS 10.13 beta 6

[lisamelton]

@ntodd Unfortunately, as you may have heard me say on podcasts, "Gramps don't beta." So, I won't install that version of macOS to test.

But the key question is, which version of HandBrakeCLI are you using? Because if there's a generation bug here, it's going to be with HandBrake itself or with the version of LibAV that it includes.

So, you should file a bug with the HandBrake team about this is someone hasn't done so already.

[lisamelton]

@ntodd BTW, sorry it took me so long to reply but I've been AFK all day.

[mikumi]

@ntodd
I had the same problem. I'm no expert, but looks like it has to do with the packaging of the stream, see this stackoverflow answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/32485240/968099

From what I understand transcode-video marks the video stream has hev1, but it actually needs to be marked as hvc1 in order to be recognized by Quick Time.

Running mp4box -raw 1 file.mp4 ans then mp4box -add file_track1.hvc output.mp4 as described in the stackoverflow answer solved the issue for me.

Ideally transcode-video would be able to output hvc1 streams directly, maybe as an option. But it's also possible Quick Time won't have this issue anymore in future betas.

[lisamelton]

@mikumi Thanks for the information! That would explain a lot to @ntodd and myself. :)

However, it's not transcode-video that is marking the streams as such. It's HandBrakeCLI or the LibAV library within it.

Of course, if the HandBrake team doesn't fix this problem, I could do it within transcode-video by calling mp4box directly. However, that would add another dependency.

[ntodd]

Been digging a bit and might have some info.

It looks like ffmpeg has added hvc1 tag support with these two commits:
FFmpeg/FFmpeg@974d508
FFmpeg/FFmpeg@369a3e1

They are currently in master and do not appear to be in a ffmpeg release yet. With the patches, you should be able to do the following with ffmpeg directly to get an hvc1 tagged version:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -tag:v hvc1 output.mp4

I will try to build from master and test, but probably won't have time to check until tomorrow.

[lisamelton]

@ntodd Excellent! Since we already have a dependency on FFmpeg then this will make it easier to eventually add support. Unless, of course, the HandBrake team does it first.

Thanks for the research!

[ntodd]

Confirming FFmpeg compiled from source works as described above. I tagged a version of the docker image that has the necessary patches (as well as latest libx265) if anyone needs it. Run it with: docker run -itv "pwd":/data ntodd/video-transcoding:0.17.3-ffmpeg

You can then convert hev1 tagged h265 to hvc1 with: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -tag:v hvc1 output.mp4 or similar.

Output works in QuickTime on MacOS 10.13 beta 6.

[lisamelton]

@ntodd Very cool. And thanks!

[mikumi]

@ntodd @donmelton
I just found this. Haven't tested it yet, but looks like the latest handbrake nightly builds will support hvc1 out of the box:
HandBrake/HandBrake@67dfaca

Maybe we just have to wait a little :)

Update: Tested & Works

[lisamelton]

@mikumi That's great news! And a much better way to fix this problem.

[k06a]

Install HEAD version of ffmpeg:

brew install ffmpeg --with-x265 --HEAD

Update hev1 tag to hvc1:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -tag:v hvc1 output.mp4

[lisamelton]

Thanks, @k06a! It's good to know how to do that with FFmpeg, too.