HEVC x265 support on Apple TV 4

[cinergi]

Hello,

I tried to play a 1080p HEVC x265 - encoded video in MKV container on my Apple TV 4 using VLC, but the video freezes every 10 seconds approximately (with artifacts), then resumes. While it's playing, the quality is good (normal). Is this a known issue?

The video is streaming from a Synology NAS box SMB share with wired network to the Apple TV (no wireless). x264-encoded videos work fine over the same setup.

Thanks
cinergi

[fkuehne]

How high is the bitrate? Did you try enlarging the network cache in settings?

[cinergi]

The bitrate is not high - approximately 1.8 Mbps. I've successfully streamed x264-encoded files with much higher bit rates without issue. My home LAN is 1 Gbps end-to-end, except the Apple TV itself which has a 100 Mbps Ethernet port (which is more than sufficient).

cinergi

[cinergi]

I tried transcoding the x265 file to x264 (at a higher bitrate), and it plays perfectly on the Apple TV 4 using VLC. The x265 file also plays perfectly on VLC on my iMac. It seems the problem is either VLC's handling of x265 on TVOS, or the hardware is not powerful enough.

Does anyone have x265 working properly on the Apple TV 4?

Thanks
cinergi

[MrFloppy]

Hi there, I have the same issue. Playback of 720P x265 is choppy. This is version 1.0.2. It was fine on version 1. Playing the file via UPnP which was smooth as silk, in a mkv container

Edit, and not all H264 files are working either when they previously did. It seems to be streams that have been downloaded via ffmpeg from HDS. Fine on 1.0, just not working 1.0.2. No video, just audio

[cinergi]

I upgraded to VLC v1.0.2, and the HEVC playback is now a lot better for me. In fact, it's perfect except in scenes with a lot of motion, in which I get some choppiness and white artifacts. At least it is useable now, unlike when I was on v1.0.0. Interesting that you had the opposite experience when upgrading!

I'm hoping someone from VLC can chime in on whether this is a software issue, or insufficient CPU power in the Apple TV.

-cinergi

[dfuhrmann]

Its known that the current code is really ressource-consuming. So it is likely that just the CPU is to slow for you, especially if you only see it for complex movements.

But this still means that software decoding can be improved...

[MrFloppy]

I upgraded to VLC v1.0.2, and the HEVC playback is now a lot better for me. In fact, it's perfect except in scenes with a lot of motion, in which I get some choppiness and white artifacts. At least it is useable now, unlike when I was on v1.0.0. Interesting that you had the opposite experience when upgrading!

It seems to have the same issue on the iPhone 6 on 2.7.2 as well. Jittery but artefact free. Trying to play the Apple TV and iPhone side by side looks like the jitters are not consistently in the same place. It looks like dropped frames.

Are you sure you weren't on 1.0.1? I held off updating so went straight to 1.0.2 because of the SMB improvements but it seems that I've lost the ability to see all SMB shares. Not worried about that though.

The troubled h264 360P file I got from a HDS stream converted to h265 will play as a h265 mkv but still has jitters.

[dekino]

Hello everyone,

also I have the same problem, I have tried all the players available in the App Store and have the same problem. Video freezes every 8-10 seconds.
I read the movie from an external NAS via Ethernet 1Gbit LAN.
Some players work better but they all have this defect. The best until now NAStify which is based on VLC.
I'm not sure that the problem stems from the CPU power because until a few months ago I used a cheap Wester Digital TV, slow and low manufacturing but any video that I tried to play a WD TV works fine with no problems. I am frustrated by the fact that I have spent a considerable sum to buy a 4th generation Apple TV and it was brought to its knees by an old device and without updates.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how we can solve this problem?

Thanks a lot to everyone.

[fkuehne]

All we can do are 2 things here:
- hope that libavcodec becomes even better optimized
- hope that Apple releases a public API to the H265/HEVC hardware decoder they included with the 4th gen Apple TV

[fabio.esquivel]

Now that we're on v3.0.1 of VLC for AppleTV (tvOS 11.2.6), I tried streaming some HEVC videos (1080p, 60fps) via SMB from my Wndows PC (Windows 10 FCU, fully updated), but the video still freezes in spite of being shorter than other H264 videos on the same PC. I'm streaming over 802.11n at 54Mbps max with no problem for multi-gig files (MP4s, MKVs).

Is this problem still an app-performance issue or truly an A8X-performance issue?

[dekino]

I solved the problem by buying a smart tv television and playing videos with vlc on television. it works perfectly! apple must learn a lot again!