H.265 / HEVC support

[Pavel_Kolotilov]

Hi guys,

Coming back to H.265. Myself, I lived in the PowerDirector (PD) universe for some years with its magnificent support of HW acceleration and file formats. Nevertheless decided to come back to ease of use of VS again. And also got a nice offer from VS, which stands very well against rip-off PD pricing

I am generally very satisfied with VS2022, except for some old problems, for example support of H.265 HW acceleration. It kind of works, but I needed a day of tests to find a way to use it. Summarizing, when I created UHD MP4 files with H.265, I found the following problems:

1. If I do not use HW acceleration, processing takes a lot of time and the resulting file DOES NOT correspond to the set bitrate. For example, I set the bitrate to 30 Mb, 50 and 70, and always got in the end 75VBR. Quality is tops, but I cannot watch it on my LG TV from NAS, because LG has a fast ethernet connection (100 Mb), and the variable bitrate jumps over it all the time - so the playback stops constantly.

2. I used Cuda HW acceleration (have a pascal-based card, Nvidia quadro P400). Processing is much faster, holds bitrate quite well (around 10% less then set). Problem is the quality: the resulting stream has some serious artifacts on the grey backgrounds (like the asphalt, for example), which makes the whole thing look terrible sometimes.

3. HW accelertation with Intel Quick Sync. This is the only one that works for me. It holds well the bitrate, almost exactly what I set. And the quality is acceptable (though compression without HW acceleration gives the best result, but bitrate is much higher there).

Another thing that I miss in VS2022 is the MKV file format and and maybe surround audio support. I mean, to put UHD video and DD audio in the same file.

Any comments about my findings or I do something terribly wrong?

[Radim]

So it is not better render 4k MP4 h264 and then convert to h265? With something like https://www.videohelp.com/software/x265-Encoder or https://www.videohelp.com/software/ffmpeg
I myself am not familiar with those but in comming weeks want to try 4k + h265.

[Pavel_Kolotilov]

Well, it is possible, of course, but it means to loose a generation (quality loss) and time. It is not 2015, by now VS just must encode with H.265 well.

[Ken Berry]

I certainly agree about it being time that HEVC is handled well in VS, especially since my GoPro Hero can be set to film in it in 4K (which is what I often do though with the bitrate usually set below 40 mbps). As you'll see from my Profile, my system is based on AMD and has a Radeon 6600 XT graphics card and no auxiliary graphics on the motherboard.

I would normally set hardware acceleration in VS 2022 to AMD for other formats. However, when set to that and trying to produce a HEVC video, VS always freezes instantly and I have to use Task Manager to end VS. With hardware acceleration not ticked, rendering is slow but I am always pleased with the output and have learnt over the years to be patient.

Oddly enough, since I got my new computer at the beginning of January, I had never thought about using Hardware Acceleration set to Intel Quick Sync. When I did so, I was surprised to find VS did not freeze. However, rendering was as slow as it was with acceleration turned off. End quality of the video was the same as far as I could see.

I also agree that it is more than time we had the chance to output to MKV. It's a wrapper format which has been around now for many years and works well. And if, as Pavel says, surround sound 5.1 can be worked into it that would be even better and at least lessen the impact of Corel's strange dropping of Dolby. Even if Dolby 5.1 remains excluded from VS, perhaps using (L)PCM 5.1 could still be worked into MKV -- though I confess I am not aware of the technicalities involved in that.

[Pavel_Kolotilov]

Ken, Intel Quick Sync is a part of the Intel processors. So, if you don´t have the Intel processor, so when you set to it, it actually keeps coding without HW acceleration. That is why it takes so much time. The same happens when even having Intel processor, one does not connect at least one monitor to the motherboard hdmi/DP socket (but rather to the video card). In this case, the graphic processor in the Intel processor is "sleeping" and Intel Quick Sync cannot be used.

[Ken Berry]

Thanks, and of course that makes sense. In a sense, though, I would have thought it might show as inactive for an AMD user with no Intel, or not even appear. But I guess that is wishful thinking.

[Davidk]

Something else to consider with Intel processors is whether the video driver software works with the on-chip-editor cpu. In my case, it didn't - acceleration selected/on, and when rendering, got an error message. No message but slow when accel off. Eventually tracked to a driver bug. So if your rendering works but with no readily apparent difference between accel on and off, maybe the driver has an un-messaged bug. Possibly is not an issue if you have a separate display adapter card installed (probably desktops only) and configured to work with the main editing software. Just be aware.

[Kanar1]

Hi,

I have a similar problem.

Corel VideoStudio 2022 Ultimate - when rendering a movie, in H.265 codec, regardless of the bitrate setting whether I do 10,000 kbps or 15,000 kbps - the program still generates a movie with a bitrate of about 27,000 kBps.

When I change the codec to H.264 - then the program generates the movie according to the set bitrate

I installed DaVinci Resolve 18 for a trial - and when generating a movie in H.265 codec, the program kept to the set bitrate.

Does anyone have an idea how to fix this ?

[zaphodikus]

So, I know this was done to death a good bit above but. I have access to a Google Pixel phone (I don't have a single video camera) and it shoots a HEVC format. It has a built in conversion option - Google pixel 7. but the conversion does not actually work.
I am so used to using ffmpeg to convert the .TS.mp4 files but eventually I had to converta whole wadge and was abotu to write a short shell script when...

I found this. https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail ... MZLZ57R3T7 basically go to the windows store and for 79 pence (UK) or 99 cents (US) you can download the codec (I assume it's a decodec too.) Cheap enough, apparently early builds of windows 10 had a free codec, but it got removed, I cannot confirm that rumour however. But at least now, no need to convert files. Anyone else used the store codec and gotten good results on quality? I did not try shoot 4K, as I don't ever have that high a production value, but it cannot hurt to learn.

[Ken Berry]

zaphodikus -- I hate to tell you, but that HEVC Extension has been available for quite some time -- at least a couple of years. It has also been mentioned in just about every thread in this forum in that time talking about getting HEVC to work with VS, though I notice that it had not been mentioned in this one until now. I raised the question about getting HEVC to work back in 2021 when I had an Intel NUC as my main video editing computer. I was told by others to load that Microsoft Extension. I still had trouble, but with some intensive intervention into my NUC by a Corel technician, I got it working finally. It can both play and produce HEVC mp4 video within VS. It can play MKV HEVC but as yet cannot produce it, even in VS 2023.

That NUC blew up almost literally at Christmas 2022, and I had the new Ryzen listed in my Profile built. Since I had learnt about the HEVC extension with my NUC, I installed it very quickly on my new Ryzen, and I have had no trouble with HEVC in the following 15 months. Both my GoPro Hero 9 and recent purchase of an Insta360 One RS 1-Inch 360 Edition film in H.265 (as well as H.264). So I have had plenty of practice now with successful HEVC filming and processing in VS.

As you probably already know, the VLC Media Player already plays HEVC video, including MKV HEVC, without needing the Extension. So pretty clearly it has the H.265 codec already written into it. Unfortunately, VS cannot latch onto that codec, so needs its own separate one, which is what that Microsoft Extension provides.

[zaphodikus]

I guess I had been searching for the wrong terms somehow. I was surprised too Ken. I'm using 2021, and it plain was not playing clips saved on a Google pixel 7 (which I have on loan now) at all until I grabbed that codec from Microsoft Store. I was thus suspecting that the way the google phone packages the stream was messing things around because ffmpeg includes a 265 codec, but I got tired of converting every file so that VS would play it at all.

[csiman]

I downloaded the windows extension but i cant seem to figure out how to install it, unless it did it on its own.

I can edit .265 gorpo formats but i cant edit ones from my panasonic camcorder that are in .265, it simply freezes viseostudio. Is there any fix at all?

[Ken Berry]

When you go to the Microsoft Store to acquire the HEVC Extension, the screen normally has an 'Install' button on it. If you have already installed it, and reopen that page in the Store, the Install button reads 'Open'.

What is your Panasonic model? Does it use the .mp4 extension on the video files you download from it, or something else?

[csiman]

it uses .264 or .265 if its HEVC file, the HEVC from the panasonic doesnt work in VS. But the .265 files from my Hero 11 gopro do work, albiet they are a littel jumpy at times even proxied.

[Ken Berry]

Yes, you said all that in your first post, but you haven't answered my questions about the model number of your Panasonic or whether the videos from it use the .mp4 extension or something else. If they in fact have a different extension, you might want to try making a copy of one using Windows File Explorer, and then use Explorer > Rename to change the extension to .mp4. If you put that video in Video Studio, will it play properly?