Kodi Community Forum

Hi everyone!

First of all, excuse me for the possible language errors, i'm French.
About two years ago, I changed my working computer and I decided to convert my old Asus 1215B to a HTPC.
Everything was fine, I discovered Kodi and it works very well for all sorts of video: exept the new HEVC/h265 ...
Here is the point, when I launch the video, it looks like a slideshow: the sound is okay but the image does not follow.
I searched a lot on the internet a few month ago but decided to postpone because the HEVC encoding is really new. Yesterday, a friend of mine gave me a HEVC video sample and I am facing this problem.
In Kodi, I tried to enable "Allow Hardware Acceleration" in Settings/system/video but it did not changed a thing.
I need to precise that this computer is still with Windows 7 on it and that windows upgrades are no often made because I switch off the computer with Kodi.
Is it a Hardware problem or a Software problem? I just upgraded Kodi to Jarvis and the problem is the same.
Here are the specs of the computer:
CPU : ADM C-50 - 1GHz
RAM : 4Gb
Video Card : AMD Radeon HD6250
Ask me if you need more informations

Thanks a lot!

On the surface I would put the blame on hardware, I certainly think you are stretching the friendship a little bit with gear that old.

You could certainly do the free upgrade to Windows 10 and give the Alpha version of Kodi (Krypton) a try, but I feel that you'll run into the same issues. Apart from DXVA, I wouldn't know of any other Kodi settings to modify to help your situation.

You are definitely stretching your hardware, BUT try downloading Daum Potplayer. If you're h265 files play without stutter, let us know! You could set it up like I do with mine and have potplayer/vlc launch to play only h265/hevc files

Thanks for you answers!

I will try and let you know.
If anybody else faced the problem, I'll be glad to hear your ideas!

(2016-03-20, 13:06)vincman Wrote: [ -> ]CPU : ADM C-50 - 1GHz

Yeah, here is your problem. This chip has no GPU acceleration for HEVC and as a CPU, it is simply NOT fast enough to process HEVC frames in real time. Nothing is broken in terms of either software or hardware, it's just not fast enough.

Thanks!
I will try the new Alpha version of Kodi. I was planning to change my installation in a short time to move to a Raspberry Pi with Openelec.
So, here is an other question:
Will Raspberry Pi 3 and the latest version of Openelec play HEVC correctly though there is no hardware decoding?
Will I be able to move my library from windows to Openelec?

Once again, thank you, you really help !

There was a Youtube video of the Pi3 trying to play a 720p HEVC video and shuddering. They also tried a 1080p HEVC video, and it was unplayable.

I see... Thank you for the answer.
Is there anybody here who has tested it on his raspberry pi? I'm probably not on the right section but anyway..
Thank you!

(2016-03-23, 21:28)vincman Wrote: [ -> ]I see... Thank you for the answer.
Is there anybody here who has tested it on his raspberry pi? I'm probably not on the right section but anyway..
Thank you!

The Pi wouldn't take you much further. You really need a GPU or iGPU capable of decoding HEVC by hardware acceleration. The newest Intel can do this with 8-bit sources. However, all of the new hardware this year should have support for both 8-bit and 10-bit HEVC sources. HEVC at high bitrates will smoke modern quad-core computers when forced to do software decoding.

So it wouldn't make much sense to upgrade to old hardware and only be able to play some HEVC content but not all.

Ok, so I think there is no point in changing my hardware for the moment for two reasons:
- x265 isn't still the standard
- Finding a x265 capable hardware seems to be hard for the moment
Thank you for all your answers, I will continue my researches in a few month when HEVC will have more importance in my library!

(2016-03-24, 18:31)vincman Wrote: [ -> ]Ok, so I think there is no point in changing my hardware for the moment for two reasons:
- x265 isn't still the standard
- Finding a x265 capable hardware seems to be hard for the moment
Thank you for all your answers, I will continue my researches in a few month when HEVC will have more importance in my library!

You're mixing up your terms. HEVC is very much a standard. x265 is the name of an open-source HEVC software encoder, it's not a codec in its own right. There are GPUs out there capable of decoding HEVC, you just need to upgrade to a newer card.