HEVC files produced not compatible with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra

[Ahmad Osman]

As you probably know, the upcoming OSes will support HEVC by default.

My testing showed that MKV/HEVC files converted to MP4/HEVC using subler are not compatible with either OS.

Researching the problem, I found that the problem lies in the video tag. it needs to hvc1 instead of hev1 to be recognized by the QuickTime decoder.

Hope this can be fixed soon.

[Damiano Galassi]

It's not that simple. The "hev1" means the extradata needed by the decoder can be in the frames data. So Subler will need to parse every frame, extract the data it needs, and reconstruct the track extradata. So it's going to take some time tom implement.

[Damiano Galassi]

Duplicate of #338.

[Ahmad Osman]

For what it's worth, using the latest ffmpeg, a simple command fixed it.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -tag:v hvc1 output.mp4

I don't know anything about extradata, but this seems to work like a charm. Tested a dozen videos, works on both OS now.

[Jose Martinez]

I tried this using latest ffmpeg (3.3.4) and this is the output:

#!

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'xyz.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2mp41
    creation_time   : 2017-09-18T19:42:49.000000Z
    encoder         : HandBrake 1.0.7 2017040900
  Duration: 00:00:34.41, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2241 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: hevc (Main) (hev1 / 0x31766568), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1080x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 1:1], 2110 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 90k tbn, 30 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2017-09-18T19:42:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2017-09-18T19:42:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : Stereo

[mp4 @ 0x7fd2d1054c00] Tag hvc1 incompatible with output codec id '174' ([35][0][0][0])
Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Invalid data found when processing input

 Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)
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