HEVC problems on 10.4.7

There are apparently problems decoding certain HEVC variants on FCPX 10.4.7. This is on both Mojave and Catalina, using both Pro Video Formats 2.10 and 2.11. It does not happen on FCPX 10.4.6.

The symptom is a total hang of the FCPX process requiring a force quit. It is not hardware-specific but has been seen on a 2019 8-core iMac 27, 2017 i7 iMac 27, and 2017 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro.

HEVC is used on cameras like the Panasonic S1 and EVA-1, also DJI drones.

It does not happen with HEVC material exported by FCPX, just with certain camera codecs, both 8-bit and 10-bit.

In my case I noticed it when transcoding proxies for 4k HEVC 8-bit material from a DJI Inspire 2 drone, also an Arlo 4k security camera. We normally shoot ProRes but HEVC is widely used.

Thanks very much for this joema. You wouldn't happen to know if this effects HEVC from iPhones as well? The frame rates on the phones can be pretty unstable, which I'm sure doesn't help matters.

Tom Wolsky wrote: Thanks very much for this joema. You wouldn't happen to know if this effects HEVC from iPhones as well? The frame rates on the phones can be pretty unstable, which I'm sure doesn't help matters.

So far I can't reproduce it using 4k/60 from my iPhone XS. I will try some more tests.

I've been shooting a lot of TV commercials with iPhone Xs no issues.

Thank you.

I did more HEVC tests with my iPhone XS including using Filmic Pro to try various bit rates, and FCPX 10.4.7 never had any problem with that material.

I downloaded some HEVC sample material from a GH5 but never saw the problem. It must be fairly narrow but I can easily reproduce it with 4k/23.98 4:2:0 8-bit material from a DJI Inspire 2.

I just got off the phone with Pro Apps support. I reproduced the problem while they remotely viewed it. We created a new user account to ensure it's not user-specific (it's not). I uploaded to them various diagnostic info they requested.

I previously tried to reproduce it with some GH5 HEVC test material but could not. Others have reported problems using 10-bit HEVC4k material from the EVA-1. I'd like to get some similar test material from an S1 or S1H since those are similar. One person in our doc team has an S1 so I will ask him. Both of my data sets are UHD 4k 8-bit 4:2:0 at 23.98, although the Arlo camera's frame rate varies. The X5S camera on the Inspire 2 is fixed at 23.98. All my machines are still on Mojave, but a few people have reported similar problems on Catalina, so it currently does not seem dependent on macOS version.

Given the right data set the problem is 100% reproducible but it seems to require several files. It can take up to a few minutes to happen. I will try to narrow the replication scenario in case Pro Apps needs it uploaded.

My gut feel is it might be related to the Metal optimizations in conjunction with certain HEVC material.

Had further discussions with Pro Apps support. Uploaded more diagnostic data. Engineering is studying the problem.

Hi, did something change? I reported it to Final Cut Pro X support. I am frustrated that I can't use 6K or 5.9K from S1H to edit.

No change or fix so far. For now you'll have to externally transcode to another codec or else use 10.4.6.. I haven't tested Compressor, so I don't know if that has the same problem.

This is not an option. Once I copy HEVC on iMac the Final Cut see it on SD CARD and start to lagging Shooting 4K in H.264 Thx, a lot

robsoniqe wrote: This is not an option. Once I copy HEVC on iMac the Final Cut see it on SD CARD and start to lagging Shooting 4K in H.264 Thx, a lot

I don't quite understand - can you provide more details? Are you shooting in HEVC or 4k H.264?

I just tested transcoding an HEVC file known to cause problems on 10.4.7 to H.264 using both EditReady and Compressor, and it worked OK.

If you have problems with HEVC on 10.4.7, until Apple fixes that you'll need to transcode to H.264 or ProRes using EditReady, Compressor, or something else.