HEVC to AVC

[Bully9]

I've searched and searched. I know all the info is out there but can't seem to find the simplest. All i want to do is:

1. Play an HEVC file, preferably in Aceplayer. I get "No suitable decoder module: VLC does not support the audio or video format "undf". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this." I just get audio. If it really can't be fixed, how do I play this type of file on my PC? Needless to say, WMP also only plays the audio.

2. Convert an X265 file to X264 using a GUI application. (This could make question 1 redundant)

I said it was simple - can anyone help, please, preferably with a simple set of steps to follow?

Thanks

[Baldrick]

1. Have you tried any OTHER player? Like latest vlc media player, potplayer, mpchc. Aceplayer sounds like it's based on an older vlc.

And editing? What are you going to edit?

[ndjamena]

Edit, where did that come from?

Actually, from what I've read some versions of VLC CAN play some files containing h.265 with certain headers but not others with certain other kinds of headers.


Here we go:

http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=1&p=36503#p36503

(Ignore the topic of the thread, hopefully that's behind us, only look at the post by romansh instead.)

[Bully9]

Hi Baldrick - The latest Aceplayer is based on VLC 2.0.5. MPCHC plays the file but stutters. WMP won't work. I don't really won't to fill my PC with more media players, so recoding in something like MeGUI seems to me the best solution. The simple avs file i have created won't open in MEGUI although it does not give an error message for the script. Surely there's a simple(ish) way to convert a 265 video file to 264?

ndjamena - i'm not sure how romansch's post helps wih the problem?

[ndjamena]

ndjamena - i'm not sure how romansch's post helps wih the problem?

Information is Power... and it's interesting, why are you complaining. You're not the only one reading this thread

I should think any avs script would use FFVideoSource to decode h265.

What container is it in, most likely MKV but you haven't actually said.

[Bully9]

Not complaining - honest

But information is only really power if you comprehend it. If that post is of use to others, great, but it's beyond my modest understanding, as is the second sentence in your post.

The video in question is an mkv.

[ndjamena]

Baldrick didn't know, and it's important that he does, for now at least, until it gets relegated to the past.

FFVideoSource should work well with MKVs...

I think we need more information about what you're actually doing, which may be a problem...

If you don't need to do any filtering, you could try handbrake, see if that works.

https://handbrake.fr/nightly.php

[Bully9]

FFVideoSource should work well with MKVs...

Sorry, i really don't know what you mean by this.

If you don't need to do any filtering, you could try handbrake see if that works.

I've downloaded 9.9.1 handbrake (i'm on winxp) but it won't seem to scan the source.

I think we need more information about what you're actually doing, which may be a problem..

All i'm trying to do is convert an HEVC video to an AVC video, as per title.

[ndjamena]

XP???

HEVC is a relatively new codec, there's no "just" involved here, but it does sound like the file is damaged somehow. Point MediaInfo at it and show us what it says.

(this whole thread, you've yet to mention one single program that can play this file...)

[lynxster]

yes mpchc does play hevc 2.65 and it offers a portable version too...

https://mpc-hc.org/

[lynxster]

is there a fast solution to go from hevc quickly to avc h.264 w/o re-encode similar to mkvtoolnix or mp4box ???

Thanks...

[_Al_]

no, they are different codecs, re-encoding must be involved, mkvtoolnix or mp4box are just muxing/re-muxing tools

[Hoser Rob]

Since you'll have to install an HEVC compatible encoder anyway if you want to convert, why the hell not just install an HEVC compatible player first and possibly save a lot of time encoding?

I use SMplayer and (sometimes) VLC to play HEVC and they work fine. I run linux exclusively so I won't bother mentioning the version numbers but they're stable versions. I avoid betas and daily builds.

SMPLayer and VLC are safe to install because they come with their own codec libraries. Neither will change overall system codecs. You're right to be concerned about that. It's one of the reasons I switched to linux.

I don't know what hardware you're using but HEVC is harder to decode than AVC and that may be the cause of the stuttering. Try SMplayer ... it's faster than VLC and has the best video playback I've used. However, I've played quite big HEVC files ... over 6Mb/s video bit rate ... in dual monitors on a laptop with an i3 CPU and an integrated Intel video card that only supports OpenGL 2.1. And it worked flawlessly. That was in SMplayer. VLC doesn't play videos as well, period.

In any video player you'll want some good performance settings for HEVC, like a decent size local file cache and perhaps enabling frame drop if needed.

[lynxster]

thanks Hoser Rob

....i heard about using ffmpeg so i tried it and it worked 1 time dont know what im doing wrong

i used this one >>> ffmpeg -i vidname.mkv -c:a copy -h265-params crf=25 vidname.mp4

supposed to change container and it did... only once changed hevc mkv to avc mp4 and worked fine

only took a few seconds but i cant get it to work again ...im stumped lol

any help would be appreciated ......thanks

[Hoser Rob]

I'm no ffmpeg expert but I don't see how that converts HEVC to AVC. I think it just remuxed it into an mp4 container. You should check the output file with mediainfo. The fact that it only took a few seconds is a big clue ... NO encoder is that fast unless the input video has a length in seconds or less.


I still think you should try to install a stable player version that will play HEVC. If you insist on conversion ... which isn't going to be fast, period ... there must be a decent GUI program. Haven't tried converting HEVC myself,

[lynxster]

Thanks... Hoser Rob
like i said earlier i could not reproduce the results a second time it was 200 MB about 45 minutes in length on an old lenovo laptop that came w XP now pushing windows 10 pro originally it would only play sound then i tried it ( cmd line for ffmpeg ) from a you tube link all of a sudden it was playing on the built in movie player from MS...

i tried both but w no success after 3-4 hours of trying maybe they are fake (but it worked only once for me) not sure... if u figure it out please save it for me
Thanks

2 links
mkv hevc to mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vev95okTo70


hevc to avc mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNfQqiI2mi4

[hello_hello]

This will convert the video to AVC, regardless of the type (change the input file extension as required). Change the CRF value to whatever you prefer. It'll copy the audio (assuming it's MP4 compatible).

ffmpeg -i vidname.mkv -c:v libx264 -crf 25 -c:a copy vidname.mp4

You could speed it up, but that'll probably reduce the quality for a particular CRF value and also change the output file size, so you might need to reduce the CRF value to compensate.

ffmpeg -i vidname.mkv -c:v libx264 -crf 25 -preset veryfast -c:a copy vidname.mp4

Pretty much any encoder GUI should be able to convert hevc to avc for you. They'll pretty much all decode hevc, so as long as they can encode with the x264 encoder, that's all you need. It's no different to re-encoding DVD video, or an Xvid/AVI in that respect.
I don't use either but I'd imagine it'd be easy enough using Handbrake or Vidcoder.

I convert hevc to avc myself now and then. I use a PC as a media player so for me it's not necessary, but at the moment none of the hardware players in the house have been magically endowed with hevc decoding abilities so I need to convert for them.

PS. If you prefer ffmpeg I'd recommend having a look at AnotherGUI. It can be used to create presets for various command line encoders and converting without having to create a batch file or run each encode manually. An AnotherGUI preset for converting anything to avc while copying the audio might look like this (you'd add it to the "first pass" section):

-i "<SourceFileName>" -y -threads 1 -vcodec libx264 -crf 25 -preset veryfast -acodec copy "<OutputPath><OutputFileName>.mp4"

Create the preset for ffmpeg.exe, make sure the preset is selected, load a bunch of files, and click Go.