[alexrose1uk]

I don't disagree that's frustrating, I have pcs that use hardware acceleration myself, but to say its non-standard seems a little unfair; its not part of the bluray spec which is what those devices are targeted at, but hi10 has been part of the h264/avc standard for quite some time, about 7 years if Wikipedia is to be believed, even if its not been implemented into things or widely used until relatively recently. Its not like this profile or standard has come from nowhere. Hell, loads of phones with hardware support don't even always support up to level4.1 or the full gamut of 8bit profiles either so its not like manufacturers and designers have always stuck to the one level of specification in thier decoders either.

It just seems like an inevitable part of progress, h265 or whatever it ends up called will also likely break all hardware compatibility, which is the danger of relying on hardware.

I've argued before on the benefits of hardware acceleration but this is one of the limits that accompanies it (same as how older hdmi systems or the original PS3 can't bitstream hd audio and have to use core/software decode), especially when in this case the hardware is seemingly based on the bluray adopted segments of the standard, and not the entirety.

It's not like there won't be groups (potentially some specifically for the purpose) reencoding these 10bit releases back to 8bit either, so I don't see there being a lack of options in the future.