HEVC support

Overview

OpenTV Video Platform supports playback of content encoded using the HEVC (H.265) codec (in addition to the AVC (H.264) codec).

Its content workflows allow content to be encoded using HEVC. The resulting technical content/channels are flagged as being HEVC-encoded through the use of the deviceType field.

On the client side, the client application:

1. Is responsible for determining whether the device it is running on is capable of playing HEVC content.
   See Determining whether the device can play HEVC content below.

2. Can check the value of deviceType in the technical section of the response it receives from MDS (when it requests live or VOD content) to determine whether a particular technical content/channel was encoded using HEVC or not. The client app can then use this information to determine which technical it should use for playback.
   See:

   • Retrieving channel lists (live)

   • Retrieve content information (VOD)

For this to work, you must ensure that deviceType has a value that allows the client to differentiate between HEVC and non-HEVC content.

You can do this by applying feature profiles to content either at ingest (technical content, technical channel) or via the CPM APIs.

These profiles are usually created and managed by NAGRAVISION using the BCM profiles API. To add or change a profile, contact your NAGRAVISION representative.

Determining whether the device can play HEVC content

You can determine whether the device supports HEVC playback or not as follows.

Android

An Android device can only play back HEVC content if both of the following are true:

• The device supports the HEVC decoder – you can find this out through mediaCodec / mediaCodecList .

• The device supports HEVC hardware acceleration – if the device supports the HEVC codec, you can check if the codec supports hardware acceleration by querying its  mediaCodecInfo object.

iOS

An iOS device can only play back HEVC content if both of the following are true:

• It is running iOS 11 or higher.

• It is running on a device with an A10 or newer chipset (that is, iPhone 7 or newer, or iPad 6th generation or newer).

See VTIsHardwareDecodeSupported in the iOS Video Toolbox documentation.