[STICKY] MX Player 10-bit Video and HEVC Discussion

[FidesnsInai]

Finally H.264 10bit 1080p is hardware decoded (HW / HW+) on some Android devices.

See my post.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/mx-player/h-264-10bit-hardware-acceleration-hw-t4144881

 

[ashrobb]

This subject has caught my interest for a while, and this thread always pops up in the google results. I've done a lot of research about it, even more since I started grabbing lots of 10-bit HEVC encodes. My experience is that most of the current high end chipsets have support for it (maybe all of them), so it shouldn't be a problem nowadays. Of course, it wasn't like this when this thread started in 2014.

Now the real deal is finding support in the mid range chipsets. I've come accross two wikipedia pages that are relatively kept up to date and I've been contributing myself.
For Snapdragon chipsets

Qualcomm Hexagon

en.wikipedia.org

For Mali GPUs (Mediatek chipsets)

Mali (GPU) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So you can have an idea of the current HW codec suport for these chipsets. About Exynos, none of the 7xxx series have support for 10 bit HEVC as far as I know, even though some of them do support VP9. I guess you have to go to the high end range for that.

Something I've noticed as well is that you can find reviews for the device you want, specially in GSMarena, and if the camera supports 4k video recording by default, it is pretty much a sure thing that the device has 10 bit HEVC support, though I can't really confirm this.

Hope this info can be useful for someone later on. This thread has a lot of info but is very spread.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I watch a lot of Anime and a lot is encoded H.264 10-bit , New stuff is now coming out in H.265 HEVC 10-bit so i make sure my SOC GPU supports hardware playback with these formats.

I cannot afford the Snapdragon SOC in high end devices, So my phone and tablet both use Mediatek SOC and i made sure they were fully compatible before i bought them and they could be return if they were not.

As the SOC has to support it and the OS has to support it and then the Playback software also has to support it, It make no difference if the SOC has support if the OS is missing the correct codecs you will be stuck with software decoding.

 

[MalevolentAmmo]

Does anyone know why HW and HW+ doesn't work on 10 bit h.265 in my Galaxy Tab A7?

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Does anyone know why HW and HW+ doesn't work on 10 bit h.265 in my Galaxy Tab A7?

Have you checked the HW+ video codecs in local settings/decoder to see how many are ticked, Try ticking the ones that are not.

If that does not work, you could become a beta tester and get the latest version, you can join on the download page for MX Player Pro, You can unjoin at any time.

 

[MalevolentAmmo]

Have you checked the HW+ video codecs in local settings/decoder to see how many are ticked, Try ticking the ones that are not.

If that does not work, you could become a beta tester and get the latest version, you can join on the download page for MX Player Pro, You can unjoin at any time.

I've tried that already, I've also tried installing the custom Codecs and nothing.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I've tried that already, I've also tried installing the custom Codecs and nothing.

Have you tried downloading a codec checker from google play and see what video codecs you have.

 

[georgemei]

Does anyone know why HW and HW+ doesn't work on 10 bit h.265 in my Galaxy Tab A7?

Exactly the same question from me, I don't have 10bit HEVC support on my Tab A7 but my Xiaomi Mi A3 and Oppo A5 2020 phones (all these have the same SD665 and Adreno 610GPU just like the Tab A7) they both have 10bit HEVC!!!
This is a big foul from Samsoung, the SoC is capable of 10bit HEVC yet for some reason something is missing on the Galaxy Tab A7.
Any ideas why this is happening?

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

To decode a video you need three components,

1 = The SOC(cpu) needs to support hardware decoding of this codec.
2 = The Android version needs to have the codec installed.
3 = The video playback software has to be able to see and use the codec to hardware decode the video.

Number 2 (codec missing) is the one you are most likely missing, Maybe Samsung will include them in an update if enough people give them hell on twitter, Though this rarely happens, I would return the tablet and buy something else if you can.

 

[MalevolentAmmo]

To decode a video you need three components,

1 = The SOC(cpu) needs to support hardware decoding of this codec.
2 = The Android version needs to have the codec installed.
3 = The video playback software has to be able to see and use the codec to hardware decode the video.

Number 2 (codec missing) is the one you are most likely missing, Maybe Samsung will include them in an update if enough people give them hell on twitter, Though this rarely happens, I would return the tablet and buy something else if you can.

Looks like they're passing the blame onto MX Player.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

So does

Looks like they're passing the blame onto MX Player.

View attachment 5191937

So does VLC player hardware decode on the Galaxy Tab A7? as MX Player is usually very good at picking up the software codecs if they are available (though you sometimes need to manually enable them in the settings for HW+ support), If it is MX Player at fault a fix should be quite quickly released as long as they know about the problem.

 

[MalevolentAmmo]

So does


So does VLC player hardware decode on the Galaxy Tab A7? as MX Player is usually very good at picking up the software codecs if they are available (though you sometimes need to manually enable them in the settings for HW+ support), If it is MX Player at fault a fix should be quite quickly released as long as they know about the problem.

I don't think there's a way to check if it's using Hardware decode on VLC because the UI doesn't show what it's using, but it's turned on. I've tried emailing them last week but I haven't heard back.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I don't think there's a way to check if it's using Hardware decode on VLC because the UI doesn't show what it's using, but it's turned on. I've tried emailing them last week but I haven't heard back.

Have you tried installing the MX Player development/beta version you can join it on the goggle play download page for MX Player, Maybe it will allow you to send back error reports, sorry if this has been suggested before.

 

[ashrobb]

Does anyone know why HW and HW+ doesn't work on 10 bit h.265 in my Galaxy Tab A7?

Wish I could have helped you sooner. I looked for the specs of the Galaxy Tab A7 (2020) and it has a Snapdragon 662.
Unlike its brothers, SD 660 and 665, 662 doesn't have support for 10-bit HEVC. Kinda confirms my theory in this post

Something I've noticed as well is that you can find reviews for the device you want, specially in GSMarena, and if the camera supports 4k video recording by default, it is pretty much a sure thing that the device has 10 bit HEVC support, though I can't really confirm this.

Snapdragon 662 can't record 4K video. This chip is a very strange move on qualcomm, it is pretty similar to 660 or 665 on everything else, but it is gimped in this regard. I guess it is targeted to budget devices but I wonder how much are they saving by removing 4K support from it.

 

[Hairako]

So I have a Huawei Nova 3i (Kirin 710 SoC and Mali-G51 MP4 GPU). I want to have clarifications regarding H.264 Hi10 Profile (10-Bit) and HEVC Main 10 Profile (10-Bit) playback using MX Player.

HEVC Main 10:
- I can't play videos in HW and HW+ Decoder, but can play them in SW decoder, although during at intense frames, it lags real hard. I'm looking for fixes if there's anything I can do to play them smoothly or I have no choice since my specs aren't compatible for HEVC 10-Bit playback?

Video Used:

[Cerberus] Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom) S1 + S2 + Special [BD 1080p HEVC 10-bit AAC] :: Nyaa

Anime - English-translated | 10.0 GiB | Uploaded by Cerberus on 2018-01-18

nyaa.si

H.264 Hi10:
- Regarding this one, I'm very confused on why is my video having pixelated/damaged pixels when playing in HW and HW+ Decoder and yes, I can play them in SW Decoder much better than the HEVC 10bits since there is an intense frame here but it went well smoothly and I hope this keeps up, but I wanted to play them nicely on HW since I wanted to save battery life. I also saw in this link (https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/igpu-arm_mali_g51_mp4-179) that h.264 is completely compatible for encode/decode of videos but it has no info for h.264 10bit/main 10 profile.

The screenshots below of the video when I played it on HW/HW+ looks like this:

Anime: Violet Evergarden

 

[ashrobb]

HEVC Main 10:
- I can't play videos in HW and HW+ Decoder, but can play them in SW decoder, although during at intense frames, it lags real hard. I'm looking for fixes if there's anything I can do to play them smoothly or I have no choice since my specs aren't compatible for HEVC 10-Bit playback?

I'm unfamiliar with the Kirin 710, but since it lacks support for 4K video recording and playback, I guess it just isn't compatible with HEVC Main 10.
SW mode plays the video, since it is decoded on software, but it uses a lot more CPU resources. HEVC Main 10 in particular is very resource intensive. So the only way you could play them faster on your phone is by re-encoding them in a format that is compatible with your chipset.

H.264 Hi10:

Regarding to this codec, it has been ignored for a long time since adoption of it has always been very low. Recently some high end chipsets have been including support for it, but it isn't widespread. I'm 99% sure your chipset don't have support for it, I've only seen it on recent high end Snapdragons (SD 850, 855, 865, 870, 888).

Sadly you are forced to use SW mode on these videos with your current device. Your alternatives are to re-encode the files to regular 8 bit H264-H265 or get a phone that support these 10 bit codecs natively.

 

[Hairako]

Your alternatives are to re-encode the files to regular 8 bit H264-H265 or get a phone that support these 10 bit codecs natively.

I've been planning to use handbrake but I'm worried since there might be great quality loss aside from → ( I'm quite aware of the slight loss since the color codec will downgrade to 8 bit from 10 bit). But is there anything you could recommend me doing?

 

[ashrobb]

I've been planning to use handbrake but I'm worried since there might be great quality loss aside from → ( I'm quite aware of the slight loss since the color codec will downgrade to 8 bit from 10 bit). But is there anything you could recommend me doing?

Well if space isn't an issue you can minimize the quality loss by using high bitrates. The highest you can spare. And encoding to regular H264 since it is the faster one to encode to. Start with the "Fast" preset and see if the quality/size/encoding time result is acceptable to you. You can adjust the video quality in the video tab, moving the Constant Quality slider.