HEVC - H.265 question

many people are on the fence about H.265 in FcpX

it turns out that ... iMovie is importing it since yesterday's update.

Did anybody perform that update ? Dit it change anything in the QuickTime library ?

(can't test myself my grade is still Capitan )

The QuickTime library? It works in QuickTime in HS. It does not work in FCP.

ok

"HS" being ?

High Sierra.

High Sierra.

ok,

so when I implement the "Pro Video Codecs" for FcpX it doesn't add nothing to the Quicktime library ?

it goes elsewhere ?

HEBC isnt in Pro Video Formats or the QuickTime library.

that was my question , thank you,

so you confirm nothing changes in the QuickTime library with that iMovie HEVC implementation.

on the other hand is HEVC is implemented for FcpX one day ... (iPhone 8 , X, Lumix GH5 etc ( import)
and... webcasting ( export)

if not added to "Pro Video Format" as you state ...

how will they do it ?

Nothing changes. I don't know about Lumix. It's in AV Foundation. It's not a pro codec.

AVFoundation is not QTFoundation, and QuickTime is slowly dying off...

Lumix claims h.265 for some GH5 shooting. wich is an other name for HEVC

So going strictly the AV fondation for HEVC means some specific work to be done in FcpX

HEVC uses the H.265 codec. It's unclear if Apple's implementation is the same as used by Lumix.

Anyone know how to export HEVC in iMovie? I just updated my new HS upgrade iMovie and am trying to test spitting out a 4K ProRes video I just exported out of FCPX.

Paul

Xavier Novembre wrote: many people are on the fence about H.265 in FcpX

it turns out that ... iMovie is importing it since yesterday's update....

H265/HEVC support requires changes in the app and underlying AVFoundation framework. If implemented in both layers the app can decode and encode H265/HEVC.

However there are two separate methods for encoding H265/HEVC: purely software vs hardware-assisted. H265 is very CPU-intensive and good performance will require hardware-assisted transcoding, e.g, Quick Sync on Skylake or later CPUs. CPUs before Skylake did not have H265/HEVC support. Skylake can handle 8-bits per color channel, whereas Kaby Lake and later can handle 10-bits per color channel. I think Netflix uses HEVC 10-bit for 4k media.

Starting with High Sierra, encode/decode of H265/HEVC is enabled for apps writing to the updated capability in the AVFoundation framework. Since iMovie is released as part of High Sierra, it has been updated, as has Quicktime Player. However FCPX is a separate app with a separate update schedule, so it hasn't yet been updated, but probably will be soon. Other 3rd-party apps such as VLC, Handbrake, etc. can be updated to use H265 if the authors wish.

However even if the apps are updated to use H265, the encode/decode can be either purely software or hardware-accelerated. E.g, with this support Quicktime Player on High Sierra instead of giving an error on H265 material would play that. However if the Mac had a CPU before Skylake it would play very slowly, using software-only decoding. On Macs with Skylake or later it will use hardware-accelerated decoding and play much faster and smoother.

Even within Quick Sync hardware-acceleration, there are two separate operating modes, denoted by Intel as PG (Processor Graphics) mode and FF (Fixed Function) mode. PG mode (available starting with Sandy Bridge) uses the on-chip GPU and associated logic to hardware accelerate encode/decode of certain codecs such as H264. Skylake supports H265/HEVC in PG mode at up to 8-bits per color channel. Kaby Lake and later support H265/HEVC in FF (Fixed Function) mode. FF mode is faster and more efficient. These modes are not exposed to the user at the app level but the app uses them if available and if programmed that way.

In my testing the 2017 iMac 27 (Kaby Lake) FCPX transcodes from H264 to ProRes 2x faster than the 2015 iMac 27 (Skylake), which may be due to using the Quick Sync FF mode.

Users from dpreview shows that mac os 10.13 (high sierra) & can't 'see' gh5 10-bit files:

"you said imovie was updated, but in the next paragraph said it won't edit 4k h265. but another person said that the gh5 10-bit files weren't h265, so i'm still a little confused. i do know that they mac os system doesn't 'recognize' my 10-bit files as ones that the system can handle."

www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60191821

whitemax wrote: Users from dpreview shows that mac os 10.13 (high sierra) & can't 'see' gh5 10-bit files...

That was my post trying to explain it. He was under the impression there was only a single "H265 codec" and once FCPX supports that, he could import and edit content from every camera on earth producing H265.

My point was H265 (like H264) is not a single codec but an overall encoding scheme. There are many H264 codecs, some of which FCPX 10.3.4 on Sierra can handle today and some it cannot -- like the GH5 4k 10-bit H264 codec.

Just adding H265/HEVC support does not mean every HEVC codec from every camera will work on FCPX -- just like having H264 support today doesn't guarantee FCPX can handle every variant of every H264 codec.

Even where FCPX will recognize and ingest material, there's a separate issue of whether editing performance is acceptable once it's ingested. That is true today for certain H264 codecs. It will be more crucial on H265/HEVC which is far more compute-intensive than H264.

E.g, you might have H265 material today which FCPX 10.3.4 will not recognize or ingest. Starting with High Sierra plus the next FCPX update it may -- but editing performance could be too slow for practical use. That might conceivably happen on (1) A Mac Pro which does not have Quick Sync acceleration, (2) A 2010 iMac prior to Sandy Bridge which does not have Quick Sync, or (3) A pre-2017 iMac which has Quick Sync but not the latest Kaby Lake version with full H265 support.

You can't even edit many 4k H264 codecs *today* on a newer iMac with smooth performance -- it often requires proxy. So H265 will not change that, but make it worse. However with H265 the performance divergence between software encode/decode and hardware-accelerated encode/decode will grow. Furthermore there may be dramatically more difference between various levels of hardware-accelerated encode/decode. I already see that on my 2017 iMac 27 -- it is about 2x faster than my 2015 iMac 27 at H264 decoding, likely due to the improved Kaby Lake version of Quick Sync in the 2017 model. With H265 such differences will probably be greater.

Despite the next FCPX update on High Sierra having H265/HEVC support, you may need a new machine to edit that with decent performance. We will know pretty soon when the update is released.

There is one rumor posted here that the Xeon-W CPUs in the iMac Pro will have on-chip graphics, which means Quick Sync: pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/inte...special-xeon-w-skus/

If you have existing HEVC footage you need to edit in FCP, there’s a slightly less easy workaround.
Import the clip into the Photos app on your Mac. Then, once it’s fully imported (which could take a little while depending on how much video we’re talking about here), then just select the clip(s) you need and Export them from Photos. Photos will export them with a codec that Final Cut Pro X can read. So once the clip(s) is/are exported from Photos to whatever location you chose, then open Final Cut Pro and import the clip(s) you just exported from Photos.

Apple demos Final Cut Pro X 10.4 with support for H.265, HDR, VR & more

www.idownloadblog.com/2017/10/28/final-c...x-10-4-announcement/