[PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

Ted Mittelstaedt tedm at portlandia-it.com
Mon Feb 27 20:38:15 UTC 2023


Just to add to this - the Brave web browser works exactly the same as the production Chrome browser works.  (I understand it uses the Chromium engine so maybe that is why)

It supports H.265 on a Kaby Lake and later CPU but not on a pre Kaby Lake CPU  (at least, on Windows. I'll have to test on Ubuntu)

Firefox, OTOH, does NOT support H.265 on EITHER a pre or post Kaby Lake CPU

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG <plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 11:51 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group <plug at pdxlinux.org>
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

On Ubuntu, ffmpeg and it's libraries are not installed by default, and Firefox is installed.

However, even installing via apt install ffmpeg later, Firefox does not use those libraries, despite the fact that the installed ffmpeg is indeed compiled with --enable-libx265 and /usr/lib/libx265.so.199 is present in the system (after installing ffmpeg)

Note that Firefox COULD BE COMPILED to use a HARDWARE based H.265 implementation if available on The platform it is running on.  In this case, there would be no royalty payment required to MPAA-LA from Mozilla

But as I said, this is a religious war.  Mozilla devs appear to be fighting every attempt to even include support That legally would not be requiring them to pay royalties.

I believe if you attempt to load a H.265  .mp4 in your Archlinux firefox you will find it won't play, either.

Like I said the only option for Firefox, apparently, is downloading the H.265 video, transcoding it to H.264 via Ffmpeg, then viewing it in Firefox.  Which is pointless since you can just install VLC on Linux and view the
H.265 file directly.  Or compile Chromium with libx265.

Ted


-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG <plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of carl day
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 10:57 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group <plug at pdxlinux.org>
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

Maybe distros are different, using Archlinux Firefox depends on ffmpeg, ffmpeg depends on libx265 [can make Chrome/Chromium unGooGled]

On 2/27/23, MC_Sequoia <mcsequoia at protonmail.com> wrote:
> "Is it possible to get Firefox to display HEVC videos?  Everything I 
> have read indicates the Mozilla developers have some religious war 
> thing going on with MPEG-LA and refuse to put support into Firefox for it -"
>
> HEVC isn't supported in Firefox because it's no a license-free codec.
>
> Some people might color that as a "religious war", but those people 
> don't understand the foundational principles and underpinning values 
> and social contracts of Linux, Open Source and the Mozilla Foundation.
>


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