H.265 Capable Media Player??

davidcrofter

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My brother is thinking of purchasing a half decent media player and has asked me to advise him what is best. So far I am between the Mede8er MED600X3D or the new Dune HD TV-303D.

My question is when the new H.265 codec starts being rolled out during the year are any of these players capable (hardware wise) of adding support for playback of H.265 or is that not possible due to limitations of the chipset.

Any thoughts please as I don't really want to guide him towards upgrading to something that could be a bit of a dead rubber 6 or so months down the line ....
 
Don't bother waiting, H.265 adoption is going to take a few years before it becomes common and will most likely be used for online streaming media initially as it cuts the file size and software decoders can be used.

Everyone would have to update their hardware to H.265 capable chips overnight for it to become commonplace which is never going to happen.
 
i am not seeing this as next010...
A huge load of companies are waiting for this NEW CODEC that is going to change MANY MANT things...and its adoption is going to be quick:

In FRANCE some ISP are going to roll it out in less than 2 months ! And By the end of the year Multimedia HDD's are coming out that support this.
Plus Sony already stated that 4k videos on PS3 will be possible with this CODEC in 2014.

On top of that the open source version X265 is going to be ADOPTED very very fast as 1080p MKV rip will become ridicously low in size with NO quality drop !!!!
I am in the same case as you as i wanted on of those 2...and decided for the med8er...BUT i WILL WAIT as for the moment i play all my videos via ps3mediaserver & PS3....

Good luck
 
+1

don't see any time soon a h265 media player. In fact i don't see any time soon a sustainable demand for 4K. h265 compression rate can be interesting, but the HDD low price per TB makes it less relevant than what it could have been 2 or 3 years ago.

@nenito2k : who's going to use h265 in france ? never heard anything about that (unless you are speaking about the VOD test between orange and samsung on their 7/8/9 TV series).
 
A huge load of companies are waiting for this NEW CODEC that is going to change MANY MANT things...and its adoption is going to be quick:

I'm highly sceptical, all those tablets/smartphones out there aren't going to be replaced quickly and are bound by hardware video decoders. The likes of Apple might release a H.265 AppleTV/iPhone sooner rather than later but it will be a very gradual adoption that takes a few years as Apple still has a huge H.264 install base they must cater too.

Google doesn't want H.264/H.265 either they reluctantly support H.264 but want VP8 and VP9 as WebM video standard, Google is unlikely to adopt H.265 with Youtube as it helps weaken WebM.

As for "the scene" they are very slow to change, a huge stink was thrown up about the move away from XviD/AVI to H.264/MP4 and MKV, I will eat my hat if they will adopt H.265 and phase out H.264 any time soon. The only people who jump on the latest bandwagon are those anime folk and no-one cares about them.

The PS3 has PS4 have the luxury of high performance CPU's that can software decode H.265 video but most devices aren't like that. You will see H.265 paired with 4K for sure but the huge cost of 4K displays means only a select few will be using it.
 
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I'm highly sceptical, all those tablets/smartphones out there aren't going to be replaced quickly and are bound by hardware video decoders. The likes of Apple might release a H.265 AppleTV/iPhone sooner rather than later but it will be a very gradual adoption that takes a few years as Apple still has a huge H.264 install base they must cater too.

Google doesn't want H.264/H.265 either they reluctantly support H.264 but want VP8 and VP9 as WebM video standard, Google is unlikely to adopt H.265 with Youtube as it helps weaken WebM.

As for "the scene" they are very slow to change, a huge stink was thrown up about the move away from XviD/AVI to H.264/MP4 and MKV, I will eat my hat if they will adopt H.265 and phase out H.264 any time soon. The only people who jump on the latest bandwagon are those anime folk and no-one cares about them.

The PS3 has PS4 have the luxury of high performance CPU's that can software decode H.265 video but most devices aren't like that. You will see H.265 paired with 4K for sure but the huge cost of 4K displays means only a select few will be using it.

I think Samsung are supporting H.265 on their high end 1080p TV's this year and it will probably be integrated into most of their 2014 range.

I guess we will know more once everything is finalised but if the PS4 & Xbox720 support it maybe that would hasten the uptake of H.265 as tens of millions would instantly have the means to utilise it ...

Media player is bought anyway.:D
 
The Rockchip chipset used in that box has no hardware decoder it uses software decoding so resolution/bitrate would likely have very strict limits. A quad core Arm CPU is still only roughly the equivalent of an Intel Atom PC CPU.
 
I saw a H265 encode today. Looks like it's starting. Also with 4k TV's and streaming it will be needed. So the question isn't should i bother with h265 support, but what the original poster asked. What supports it so far?
 
sony have just released there new tv line up and state that they will be supporting the the new h.265 codec next010
The only people who jump on the latest bandwagon are those anime folk and no-one cares about them.
bit harsh most of all the anime comes from Asia and that's were most if not all our electronic goods come from and thats the highest density of population so i think some one will care ;)
 
There are some chips that support H.165 but they are rare.
Software decoding takes quite a bit of CPU power so can only handle low bit rates, nowhere near 4k rates.
 
* Sigma Designs have a chip with H.265 support.
* Qualcomm have a chip with H.265 support.
* Amlogic have a chip with H.265 support but it's not their media/stb line but tablet line.

No products announced using any of those yet, all of them are Arm based chips.

Also for personal encodes x265 fairs poorly compared to x264 go look at demos on Doom9 forums, it will be a while before x265 is anywhere near as good.

@dazm41 true I was being a bit harsh but those anime bleeding edge types are HTPC users as far as I can tell, media player box market never really catered to them instead focusing on DVD/Blu-ray users.

But the media player box market itself is sort of well not quite dying but it's a shadow of its former self, the main reason to buy a streaming box is for Internet media content these days (Netflix, Youtube, etc), competent DLNA players are built into everything from tablets to TV's (VLC now soft decodes H.265 on iOS). So the old digital file players have sort of fallen by the wayside as there isn't quite the demand for them any more.

Maybe later in the year when hopefully AndroidTV becomes official we might starting seeing some new stuff, I'd be surprised if we ever see anything new that isn't Android based or running XBMC/linux again aside from the commercial BD players.
 
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The Dune/PCH market is dying because cheap Android boxes are replacing them, not a bad thing.
Commercial BD players usually run Linux BTW.
 
It would not be a bad thing if the Android boxes actually performed well. But seems there is always problem with them and high bitrate or high bitrate with high audio bitrate.
 
That is why you need to choose one with the right chip in it.
Although the video/audio decoders are up to it, the rest of the system simply isn't fast enough to feed the data it requires.
I like the Raspberry Pi but it cannot play Blu-ray content over a network because of this. To be fair, it wasn't designed to. Broadcom just used their standard video decoder core.
 
Seems there is no perfect chip/driver/OS combo yet. The player I had the highest hopes for being the nixeus running the Marvell ARMADA turned out to be a bust. Then I tried the original PI v.A which did not handle 1080p, then I tried the ouya. I was waiting to see how the black box panned out before I jumped on another android player. As of right now an intel haswell NUC system might be the next step. or the 10watt bay trails depending on performance
 
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x265 development is going rapidly and is already better quality then x264!
alot of people say that the "file size benefits" of x265 are to be neglected but this is not the case for it is not intended to get the smallest posible file (like a 600Mb movie file) its intended to the get true bluray source quality at half the size or less for streaming benefits...

If you want a media box that will play x265 (at any bit) now and in the future, for this or any other new codec. Your better off building your own media box using XMBC and a barbone pc!
which is not that mutch more expensive then any company build media box.
And you will always be able to update your media box software or hardware wize, now and in the future...
As it a standard windows pc

It also has the best looking interface iv ever seen, which has changeble using skins.


besure to set it up using 2 Solid state drives (2x 20 Gb or so) in a raid setup for your boot drive to make it boot windows very fast
 
I have a mkv H265 demo which plays fine using mxplayer on my samsung note 3 which is using SW decoding.

it can also playback 10bit MKV files, full bluray demo of avatar with HD Audio (download the DTS codec from XDA forum)

Android will push into the media market,

thanks
 
android players still suffer all there original problems. HD audio codec support is sparse and there is no frame rate syncing.
 
what video bitrates?
 
Hi,

the codec pack downgrade DTS-HD tracks to stereo, unforuntaly i dont have a mini hdmi cable for my phone to test it properly with receiver.

this is the demo i have on my phone.

Complete name : E:\Video\TearsOfSteel_1080p_24fps_27qp_1474kbps_GPSNR_42.29_HM11_2aud_7subs.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 196 MiB
Duration : 12mn 14s
Overall bit rate : 2 244 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2013-11-11 21:52:32
Writing application : mkvmerge v6.2.0 ('Promised Land Rovi v1.0.4') built on Aug 29 2013 13:59:38
Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : [email protected]
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 12mn 14s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : A_AAC
Duration : 12mn 14s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Default : No
Forced : No

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 12mn 14s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 39.2 MiB (20%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No
 
A 2244 Kbps HEVC video is do-able with software decoding, much higher bitrates though would be beyond software decoding.

On the HD audio front Marvell have announced the Armada 1500 Pro, it is the reference design for AndroidTV platform and the chip supports Dolby and DTS HD.

Has a good quad core CPU and a good Vivante GPU too, so it should be able to soft decode lower bitrate HEVC videos.

Of course it's another thing entirely for someone to actually make a box with all those bits enabled. Hopefully when AndroidTV units come out later this year they do.
 
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