Some Dell and HP laptop owners have been befuddled by their machines' inability to play HEVC/H.265 content in web browsers, despite their machines' processors having integrated decoding support.
Laptops with sixth-generation Intel Core and later processors have built-in hardware support for HEVC decoding and encoding. AMD has made laptop chips supporting the codec since 2015. However, both Dell and HP have disabled this feature on some of their popular business notebooks.
HP discloses this in the data sheets for its affected laptops, which include the HP ProBook 460 G11 [PDF], ProBook 465 G11 [PDF], and EliteBook 665 G11 [PDF].
"Hardware acceleration for CODEC H.265/HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) is disabled on this platform," the note reads.
Despite this notice, it can still be jarring to see a modern laptop's web browser eternally load videos that play easily in media players. As a member of a group for system administrators on Reddit recalled recently:
People with older hardware were not experiencing problems, whereas those with newer machines needed to either have the HEVC codec from the Microsoft Store removed entirely from [Microsoft Media Foundation] or have hardware acceleration disabled in their web browser/web app, which causes a number of other problems / feature [degradations]. For example, no background blurring in conference programs, significantly degraded system performance ...
Owners of some Dell laptops are also experiencing this, as the OEM has also disabled HEVC hardware decoding in some of its laptops. This information, however, isn't that easy to find. For example, the product page for the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1, which has HEVC hardware decoding disabled, makes no mention of HEVC. There's also no mention of HEVC in the "Notes, cautions, and warnings" or specifications sections of the laptop's online owner's manual. The most easily identifiable information comes from a general support page that explains that Dell laptops only support HEVC content streaming on computer configurations with:
- An optional discrete graphics card
- An optional add-on video graphics card
- An integrated 4K display panel
- Dolby Vision
- A CyberLink Blu-ray playerWhen reached for comment, representatives from HP and Dell didn't explain why the companies disabled HEVC hardware decoding on their laptops' processors.
A statement from an HP spokesperson said:
In 2024, HP disabled the HEVC (H.265) codec hardware on select devices, including the 600 Series G11, 400 Series G11, and 200 Series G9 products. Customers requiring the ability to encode or decode HEVC content on one of the impacted models can utilize licensed third-party software solutions that include HEVC support. Check with your preferred video player for HEVC software support.
Dell's media relations team shared a similar statement:
HEVC video playback is available on Dell's premium systems and in select standard models equipped with hardware or software, such as integrated 4K displays, discrete graphics cards, Dolby Vision, or Cyberlink BluRay software. On other standard and base systems, HEVC playback is not included, but users can access HEVC content by purchasing an affordable third-party app from the Microsoft Store. For the best experience with high-resolution content, customers are encouraged to select systems designed for 4K or high-performance needs.
While HP's and Dell's reps didn't explain the companies' motives, it's possible that the OEMs are looking to minimize costs, since OEMs may pay some or all of the licensing fees associated with HEVC hardware decoding and encoding support, as well as some or all of the royalties per the number of devices that they sell with HEVC hardware decoding and encoding support [PDF]. Chipmakers may take some of this burden off of OEMs, but companies don't typically publicly disclose these terms.
The OEMs disabling codec hardware also comes as associated costs for the international video compression standard are set to increase in January, as licensing administrator Access Advance announced in July. Per a breakdown from patent pool administration VIA Licensing Alliance, royalty rates for HEVC for over 100,001 units are increasing from $0.20 each to $0.24 each in the United States. To put that into perspective, in Q3 2025, HP sold 15,002,000 laptops and desktops, and Dell sold 10,166,000 laptops and desktops, per Gartner.
Last year, NAS company Synology announced that it was ending support for HEVC, as well as H.264/AVC and VCI, transcoding on its DiskStation Manager and BeeStation OS platforms, saying that "support for video codecs is widespread on end devices, such as smartphones, tablets, computers, and smart TVs."
"This update reduces unnecessary resource usage on the server and significantly improves media processing efficiency. The optimization is particularly effective in high-user environments compared to traditional server-side processing," the announcement said.
Despite the growing costs and complications with HEVC licenses and workarounds, breaking features that have been widely available for years will likely lead to confusion and frustration.
"This is pretty ridiculous, given these systems are $800+ a machine, are part of a 'Pro' line (jabs at branding names are warranted – HEVC is used professionally), and more applications these days outside of Netflix and streaming TV are getting around to adopting HEVC," a Redditor wrote.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Trundy Belwicks on Wednesday November 26, @06:00AM (3 children)
This is nuts! Of course for these Dell and HP laptops, but for the Synology NASs too? It's pretty obvious and even well-known to the most basic techie end-user that "smart" devices like Roku TVs or Amazon Fire Sticks don't have good capability to decode 4k, and sometimes even 1080p. Are licensing fees really that expensive?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 26, @12:49PM
> Are licensing fees really that expensive?
$0.04 price increase on 10 million laptops is $400K, that hit some MBA's radar and they identified that the total cost of the licenses was increasing from $2M per year to $2.4M - they floated the proposal to save $2.4M per year and were given a promotion for it.
If the laptops sell for $800 retail, it's a reasonable assumption that HP/Dell are getting $400 per laptop and their base costs per unit (not counting sales, marketing and other overhead that doesn't scale per unit) is around $200 per unit. So, margin per unit sold around $200 per unit - odds that this change is going to dent sales by 1000 units per month? Before the people making the decisions get their quarterly bonuses based on the increased profits and move to new jobs at other companies - with a big step up in salary and benefits because of their stellar performance in their current role?
Job mobility is a good thing for the workers, but it's crap for the brands, particularly when moves like this have no real visibility / traceability across companies.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 26, @01:15PM
I both agree and disagree in that my oldest and newest roku will play anything my Emby server can throw at it for AV1, rarely hiccups on H.264 (like if its a corrupt file or buffering it may not recover sometimes), but will "often" crash out on VP9 codec regardless of res (so I don't acquire VP9 content and preferentially obtain AV1 content...)
Odd that VP9 is royalty free etc so you'd think it would have better support, however ...
Emby can transcode on the server if you have a very big server. It requires about 0 resources except for media scans which take longer on smaller resources, and server side transcoding, obviously. Server side transcoding sometimes makes a VHS tape from the 80s look good so I try to avoid it.
My pet theory is thermal throttling. If you're having roku problems make sure it gets at least SOME airflow. Roku crashes subjectively SEEM to be a summer time problem LOL.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday November 29, @11:46PM
That sort of thing is why I don't buy Dell. I remember buying one and they'd disabled a heat sensor. The machine ran fine, but I had limited ability to turn the system off on the basis of temperature. Around here it's not much of an issue as the temperature rarely breaks 80F in the summer, but it's still annoying to find that they're cutting corners on things like that rather than advertising when only a few computer makers back then were advertising on TV.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26, @07:56AM (4 children)
> units are increasing from $0.20 each to $0.24 each
Rather than give the customer the option to pay twenty four cents for a *drastically* increased user experience on their multi-thousand-dollar computer, they're just .... shutting off video decoding support.
Fantastic.
As in, that's a fantasy, right? Unbelievable, fantasy-like, not real? How could they possibly conclude that this is a good thing to do? Don't web meetings use H265 as well, probably??
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday November 26, @12:05PM (2 children)
I was wondering that to. It seems like a petty cost they could just push on the customer.
So that is about 400-500k or so then per quarter so lets say about two million per year. I would assume that DELL or HP could take a two million dollar hit if they wanted to. Or considering as noted if they have to push that onto the customer or not. Considering the profit margin per laptop could they even tell? But sure I can understand it from their perspective, it's after all a cost increase (even tho minor) multiplied by the number of machines or cpu:s or gpu:s or whatever they charge per.
Still it seems weird. Who would want to buy a laptop where this is turned off? You then have to decode things in a much less efficient and more costly, system resources, way. So instead of using the built in hardware acceleration decoding you now have to use CPU/GPU to do it. So more power to that, more fans swirling, more battery power used ... It might also start to lag a bit then if it's "live".
I would assume it's used to encode and decode all the faces that are on camera for your teams/zoom/whatever meetings. Also all the youtube videos you watch etc.
Just how disabled is disabled and how? The question becomes how did they turn it off or did they hard remove it? Or if it can be turned on again by some coding option or jumper setting. Or did they close it off more permanently. After all they did not redesign and make new circuits.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26, @03:44PM (1 child)
Nowadays these "hardware accelerators" are pretty much all just proprietary software running on a GPU. This is almost certainly just removed functionality from the drivers they ship.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 27, @02:31AM
In which case, wouldn't using an older driver enable it?
It's not like the GPUs have changed significantly, not at the level of business laptops.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26, @12:41PM
Sort of a car analogy? Isn't it BMW that will sell you a car that includes options like heated seats...but you have to pay $$/year to enable those features.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 26, @11:50AM (1 child)
Commercialization shoots itself in the foot again. I use AV1. I have never deliberately used H265. Have never tried to install H265, never tried to produce H265 video.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 26, @12:54PM
I don't want it, but I use it anyway while streaming IP camera video.
Actually, I believe the Raspberry Pi 5 also did a similar thing, dropping h.264 hardware decode where the Pi 4 has it, probably for similar reasons as HP and Dell - at some level. My Pi 5 with HAILO hat would better be configured as a Pi 4 with HAILO hat, but I didn't uncover the hardware decode issue until after I built it. Strangely, they both have h.265 hardware decode, but some of my relatively ancient IP cameras don't.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday November 26, @01:20PM
People don't expect windows to work, so intentionally making something not work will not be a problem in the market.
If they complain it doesn't work, they don't want to call India and wait on hold for 3 hours until being told to reinstall windows to get them off the line and go away by annoying them. Meanwhile the smuggiest of locals will simply tell them if they wanted a computer that worked they would have bought an Apple Mac.