Crashes/Unable to launch with HEVC

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

Hello, some users are reporting that my 60fps HEVC/H.265 submissions do not work for them.

Examples:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873080925
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873072526

The video stream looks fine to me and to any decoder I'm trying and I cannot reproduce the issues on my end on either of my local machines, but the amount of users that can't play it is rising.

How does the codec support work in Wallpaper Engine? Any guesses what could be the issue?

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

If it helps, the videos are encoded using libx265, 19 RF, main/slowest settings, 60 fps constant framerate and there is no audio stream.

[Biohazard]

That will only work on hardware that supports it and it seems to be Windows 10 only https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/mt218785(v=vs.85).aspx

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

I see. Would you consider embedding an open source decoder instead of relying on the OS?

[Biohazard]

I'm afraid I can't because I would have to pay patent fees to MPEG-LA for shipping any kind of decoding code of their proprietary formats.

For now Workshop is only supposed to be WebM and mp4 + h.264, the editor just has no detection for the codec yet.

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

That seems like a stretch, are you sure? I don't see video players and editors paying royalties for using open source tech, that sounds absurd. Or is there some specific exact content bundled with WE you have in mind? Perhaps an exception could be made to decode that exact content using the OS provided filters?

[Biohazard]

The issue is software patents, it has nothing to do with the code, but the algorithm that is patented.

Not even Firefox can bundle open-source h.264 code: http://www.techspot.com/news/51702-mozilla-gives-in-adds-h264-video-support-to-firefox-nightly-builds.html

Edit: And what Firefox is doing now is pulling Cisco's h.264 binaries: http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/open-source-h-264-removes-barriers-webrtc they don't have h.265 though. And it probably wouldn't have hardware acceleration if they had it.

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

I thought the terrible licencing issues with h264 were a thing of the past, my mistake. I guess the only way would be for Wallpaper Engine to go GPL, which I'm not sure is realistic. Thanks for the insight into the problem.

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by Mr. Dat:

I guess the only way would be for Wallpaper Engine to go GPL, which I'm not sure is realistic. Thanks for the insight into the problem.

I'm not opposed to it, but right now what's on my mind is finishing Early Access and the Windows version. If I want to support more OS, then I think open-source of some kind would make most sense anyway.

[Butz Yung]

I wonder if there is any special reason why you don't use the common H.264 to encode your video instead of H.265

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

Originally posted by Butz Yung:

I wonder if there is any special reason why you don't use the common H.264 to encode your video instead of H.265

Not a special reason, rather a pragmatic one as H.265 is superior to H.264 in every aspect. In most cases you get half the filesize at the same visual quality. VP9 is the next best thing I can get at 1080p, so I guess I'll use that for newer uploads in the meantime.

I guess you could say the footage gets decompressed in memory anyway and for wallpaper uses, having not-so-intelligent encoder may be actually beneficial for faster decode performance, but I haven't found notable differences between H.264 and H.265 in that regard, at least on my machine.

[Butz Yung]

Originally posted by Mr. Dat:

Originally posted by Butz Yung:

I wonder if there is any special reason why you don't use the common H.264 to encode your video instead of H.265

Not a special reason, rather a pragmatic one as H.265 is superior to H.264 in every aspect. In most cases you get half the filesize at the same visual quality. VP9 is the next best thing I can get at 1080p, so I guess I'll use that for newer uploads in the meantime.

I guess you could say the footage gets decompressed in memory anyway and for wallpaper uses, having not-so-intelligent encoder may be actually beneficial for faster decode performance, but I haven't found notable differences between H.264 and H.265 in that regard, at least on my machine.

The problem is that H.265 is still not so widely supported on all systems. Even if it can be decoded, it will still require a lot of CPU power without the aid of the state-of-the-art GPUs. That's why from time to time you will hear people complaining about some video wallpapers not working or taking up too much CPU power.

Considering that your wallpapers ain't that big in terms of filesize, you will get the same visual quality with H.264 with just around 50% filesize increase, not a big deal in my opinions.

[Metro Goldwyn Frajer]

Originally posted by Butz Yung:

The problem is that H.265 is still not so widely supported on all systems. Even if it can be decoded, it will still require a lot of CPU power without the aid of the state-of-the-art GPUs. That's why from time to time you will hear people complaining about some video wallpapers not working or taking up too much CPU power.

Considering that your wallpapers ain't that big in terms of filesize, you will get the same visual quality with H.264 with just around 50% filesize increase, not a big deal in my opinions.

The decoding speed doesn't seem that much different on my end, but you're right that the codec is in a problematic spot. There's also AV1 coming in a few months which will probably solve the situation long term, so I'll just use VP9 and wait.