Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
>I suppose if Cisco switches to h.265 for video conferencing, this will be all >me a moot point. They are a founding member of AOM and already use a software version of AV1 in Webex: https://blog.webex.com/engineering/the-av1-video-codec-comes-to-webex/ If MPAA-LA had actually worked with them on a realistic patent license fee then they might have not funded AOM and be using H.265. AV1 compresses more than H.265 so there is zero point to switch to it. Cisco probably pays for the super powerful AV1 transcoding servers from the savings on reduced network infrastructure needed because the AV1 streams require less network bandwidth than H.265 streams would. Webex like all of those apps use streams sent to the Cisco Webex server. So for now, H.264 streams go from a Webex participant to the Webex server, and are likely transcoded to AV1 with super powerful servers, then sent back out to all participants. If the Webex client is on a mobile phone with a CPU that has an AV1 encoder chip then Cisco encodes it to AV1 from the participant. >https://www.videolan.org/developers/x265.html >can be linked to vlc and ffmpeg, and anything linked to them. Ffmpeg binaries are a patent violation and distributing them is a violation. It is small enough that MPAA-LA is not going after them. But it makes it impossible to use ffmpeg with libxh265 in anything corporate. MPAA-LA does not care about you viewing your security cam in your house, LOL. In any case the corporate types use CPU's that have H.265 hardware codecs. Reolink uses the Novatek NT98562 hardware encoder chip for example: https://serhack.me/articles/introduction-firmware-analysis-ip-camera-reolink/ AV1 is designed to use a lot less CPU and power for decoding than encoding. You can use ffmpeg compiled with libdav1d and get all the fast AV1 decoding you want on any platform you want. But to encode with ffmpeg needs libaom and it's an extraordinarily painful process. We are talking hours for just a short few minute video. Microsoft hands out an AV1 decoder for free as well. Firefox also uses libdav1d and they also added support for hardware AV1 decoding recently. AV1 decoding is NOT the issue with ffmpeg or web browsers and with transcoding an incoming AV1 stream, so viewing AV1 in a browser is NOT the problem. ENCODING is the problem and that will have to take hardware encoders and support for them. The reason that cams like the Reolink cams use H.265 to encode is because right now the hardware AV1 encoders are way more expensive (Nvidia ADA Lovelace for example) Even with Novatek having to pay the MPAA-LA patent their H.265 hardware encoder chip is cheaper than a hardware AV1 encoder. Now. That will change in the future, though. >https://www.libde265.org/blog/2014/02/22/gstreamer-4k-h265-hevc-plugin/ >Anything that uses gstreamer can play h.265 with this gst plugin and >libde265 library.. None of this hodgepodge of programs is going to be able to keep up with encoding a video stream using A low power CPU like the ARM A9 in a camera. That's why they use hardware encoders. >Whether a plugin/extension/HTML5/js/nodejs can be massaged so as to display in >a web browser is another exercise. Once more it's pointless since Chrome supports the hardware decoders in Kaby Lake and later CPUs that have them. >H.265 is a topic on the Zoneminder forums, so they are aware: >https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?t=31787 Actually, everything on that above link is wrong. The first post says: "the issue is, once enabled, zoneminder no longer allows you to watch saved events or scrub multiple events." Which is completely wrong since I'm staring at a Zoneminder saved event that is saved in H.265 right this second with no problems! There's also a post in that thread about decoding H.265 in Javascript which is nuts because because Chrome/Edge on modern hardware can already display native H.265. The whole javascript idea would only benefit Firefox, and Chrome running on older hardware. It would be a lot less work to just write a patch for Firefox to use the hardware decoder. Mozilla did this for the hardware AV1 decoders already, they can do it for the hardware H.265 decoders easily. I think the posters in that thread really were unclear on the issue. Of course, that thread is older than the fix that Google made to Chrome to support hardware decoders. >https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?p=129677&hilit=H.265#p129677 This link is accurate. ZM transcodes incoming H.265 or any other video codec a camera might use into H.264 for the live view. The initial poster of that thread very likely had some other issue in his configuration. >Unfortunately, I missed your Zoneminder talk. I have it running here with 2 >cellphones [1] and just added a Reolink E1 >Pro [2]. Once I figured out that I >needed their windows app (WINE FTW!) to activate rtsp and ONVIF I was able to >find >the h264 s
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
On 2/26/23 20:31, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > Hi All, > > I have a perplexing question I am seeking answers to. Note that this DOES > concern BOTH Windows and Linux, I'll start off with Windows. > > So as I mentioned in my talk on security cams the Reolink cam I passed around > outputs video over the network. There are 2 streams it makes available, a > primary stream and a substream. > > The primary stream is the full resolution of the camera and it outputs in > H.265. The substream is a much more limited resolution of the camera and it > outputs in H.264 > > I'm not going to weigh in on any F/OSS "religious war", and I could care less about what MS Windows has or doesn't, but there are workarounds since only the h.265 binaries are patent encumbered, IIRC. Interestingly, the same patent encumbrances cover h.264, but here, Mozilla partnered with Cisco: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/open-h264-plugin-firefox I suppose if Cisco switches to h.265 for video conferencing, this will be all me a moot point. https://www.videolan.org/developers/x265.html can be linked to vlc and ffmpeg, and anything linked to them. https://www.libde265.org/blog/2014/02/22/gstreamer-4k-h265-hevc-plugin/ Anything that uses gstreamer can play h.265 with this gst plugin and libde265 library. Whether a plugin/extension/HTML5/js/nodejs can be massaged so as to display in a web browser is another exercise. H.265 is a topic on the Zoneminder forums, so they are aware: https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?t=31787 https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?p=129677&hilit=H.265#p129677 Unfortunately, I missed your Zoneminder talk. I have it running here with 2 cellphones [1] and just added a Reolink E1 Pro [2]. Once I figured out that I needed their windows app (WINE FTW!) to activate rtsp and ONVIF I was able to find the h264 streams. why were these disabled by default and no web console! -Ed - [1] https://www.linuxgalaxy.org/kingbeowulf/repurpose-cellphones-as-home-security-cameras/ [2] If you happen to know how to get the Zoneminder camera motion control working on E1 pro, ping me offlist!
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
m compiled on openSUSE should work - if you are running openSUSE on a Kaby Lake or later CPU If it does not then the Chromium maintainer for openSUSE needs to be informed and a bug filed with their compilation. The issue though is what the various derivative browser projects do when they are compiled and run on a NON-Kaby lake CPU. As I have discovered with Ubuntu, Brave reports no support, Firefox reports no support (obviously) and Chromium only supports it if you build it with libx265 (the source for that is available that that URL I posted where the Chromium binaries are that have the software support) I would say it's a bug if Brave, Opera and Chrome all open the video window and just stall out. Instead they should be reporting "codec not available" or "H.265 hardware codec not present in system" some reasonable error message. That's what I get with Brave on Ubuntu, and that's what you SHOUD be getting on openSUSE. On Ubuntu 20, the specific error message from Brave is "The video could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported." This is in fact a duplicate of the Firefox error message on ALL CPUs. Ted -Original Message- From: American Citizen Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 6:04 PM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group ; Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC Ted I am running openSuse Leap 15.4 latest and attempted to run the https://test-videos.co.uk/bigbuckbunny/mp4-h265 video Mozilla Firefox gets codec error and aborts Brave, Opera, and Chrome all open the video window, then stall out. I wonder if someone should contact the Packman people on this?? They seem to stay updated on all linux media things. - Randall
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
Ted I am running openSuse Leap 15.4 latest and attempted to run the https://test-videos.co.uk/bigbuckbunny/mp4-h265 video Mozilla Firefox gets codec error and aborts Brave, Opera, and Chrome all open the video window, then stall out. I wonder if someone should contact the Packman people on this?? They seem to stay updated on all linux media things. - Randall
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
Try this: Go to the following in Firefox: https://test-videos.co.uk/bigbuckbunny/mp4-h265 Click Download on the first one - you will get the codec error If your CPU is Kaby Lake, try that on Chrome. If not, do it from the Debian-compiled Chromium off the link I posted and it will work. Youtube is probably looking at the browser header and transcoding the video on the fly to something other than H.265 Ted -Original Message- From: PLUG On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 4:40 PM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC "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." I'm running Linux debian 4.19.0-22-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.260-1 (2022-09-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux with Firefox 102.5.Oesr and I can play this HEVC H.265 Youtube test video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa2bL--exAM
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
"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." I'm running Linux debian 4.19.0-22-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.260-1 (2022-09-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux with Firefox 102.5.Oesr and I can play this HEVC H.265 Youtube test video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa2bL--exAM
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
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 On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 11:51 AM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 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 On Behalf Of carl day Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 10:57 AM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 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 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. >
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 On Behalf Of carl day Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 10:57 AM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 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 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. >
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
I understand it but try explaining that to Reolink. What it boils down to for many is either you lose $1000 on buying a new catalytic converter when the skanks cut yours off and run off with it, or you fork over $300 in cameras and cabling you do yourself, plus some hours on an older PC, to get video that allow the cops to catch the skanks Since I want my own catcon left in peace I will help figure out how to support HEVC. Foundational principles and underpinning values don't work on an empty stomach because you had to spend your grocery bill supporting some skank's drug habit by repeatedly buying new catcons for them to steal and sell. Fortunately for us, the big boys like Intel and company understand this which is why they forked over the cash to develop AV1 and why they are coming out with CPUs with AV1 codecs. They have had enough of MPA-LA just like Mozilla has, but unlike me they had the cash to do something about it. But until then, me and Reolink are stuck with HEVC. This is a game of elephants. We are just trying to avoid being stepped on. Ted -Original Message- From: PLUG On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 8:54 AM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC "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.
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 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. >
Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
"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.
[PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC
Hi All, I have a perplexing question I am seeking answers to. Note that this DOES concern BOTH Windows and Linux, I'll start off with Windows. So as I mentioned in my talk on security cams the Reolink cam I passed around outputs video over the network. There are 2 streams it makes available, a primary stream and a substream. The primary stream is the full resolution of the camera and it outputs in H.265. The substream is a much more limited resolution of the camera and it outputs in H.264 Normally the way you configure the NVR is to do all the motion analysis and triggering on the substream, because it is not compressed and since it's lower resolution this is much less taxing on the CPU of the NVR since it does not have to decompress every frame just to do motion detection analysis on it. Then you set a trigger on the main stream so the NVR only records the main stream when there's motion. Basically the NVR just throws the H.265 video directly to the hard disk, no analysis. This of course creates a bunch of H.265 archival event *.mp4 files on the hard disk of the NVR should you ever have to go back and review video. Now, under a fresh install of Windows 10 build 22H2 , what I have discovered is that with a brand new Windows 10 installation on a PC that has a pre-Kaby Lake CPU, (pre Kaby Lake CPUs do not have a hardware H.265 codec in them) all 3 of the major web browsers - Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, will NOT show the video files, and will throw a message about codec being unavailable. In addition, Windows Media Player will not play it either. Nor will the latest "Media Player" player (there is a version of Media Player which is the player that replaced Groove Music in Windows 11 that works on Windows 10 that Microsoft accidentally let slip out) If you go to the Microsoft Windows Store, and you download a 99 cent HEVC codec from Microsoft, titled HEVC Video Extensions, then Edge will now play the videos as well as the old Windows Medial Player and the new Media Player. (I am aware that VLC and Klite codec with Windows Media Player Classic contain open source HEVC decoders that nobody has paid a patent fee to MPEG-LA to that will play these videos but I'm not going to go there at the moment. Under a brand new installation of Windows 11 build 22H2 on a Kaby Lake CPU or later (such as my laptop which has a Core i5-8365U CPU in it) _BOTH_ Edge and Chrome _will_ display H.265 encoded videos WITHOUT the 99 cent HEVC video extensions app from Microsoft, and without any other HEVC extension. In the past, Microsoft included this thing called "HEVC Video Extensions for Device Manufacturer" in older Windows 10 builds. Allegedly, during windows installation if it detected a Kaby Lake CPU it would install this. However, it appears that later versions of Edge broke compatibility with that although the Windows Media Player did work with it on Kaby Lake. THIS EXTENSION IS _NOT_ INSTALLED on a fresh Windows 11 build 22H2 on a Kaby Lake CPU. When I had Windows 10 on my Kaby Lake CPU laptop, either with or without the HEVC extensions, Chrome refused to display H.265 videos. Under the latest version of Ubuntu, running on a pre-Kaby Lake CPU, Firefox will NOT display H.265 videos which is what I expected. However, there is a version of Chrome/Chromium that appears to be compiled with a software H.265 decoder in it located at https://github.com/StaZhu/enable-chromium-hevc-hardware-decoding/releases that DOES play HEVC videos on Ubuntu on systems that have a pre Kaby Lake CPU. So, what I am trying to find out is the following: 1. 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 - EVEN WHEN the underlying CPU is Kaby Lake, with the hardware codec. They seem to think that they can push VP9 or AV1 codecs but the problem is vp9 is not as efficient as HEVC and none of the cheaper security cameras seem to output in this format anyway - they all output in HEVC. I assume some of the cost of the camera is a patent fee paid to MPEG-LA 2. Obviously, the compiled version of Chromium with the software HEVC decoder in it has not yet come to the attention of the MPEG-LA's lawyers who have not yet filed a takedown request on it (I am not going to get involved in discussing that patent mess - it's well documented on the Internet if you care to look for it) It's built on the open-source Chrome code. I don't know, of course, if it's code will actually use a hardware decoder if one is present or not, but I KNOW it's decoder must have a software codec in it since it runs on hardware with an Intel Core i5-4570 CPU (which is definitely pre-Kaby Lake) I have read that it should be possible for anyone to download Chrome and compile it with the h265 codec enabled since apparently Chrome's developers distribut
