Any plans to support HEVC / X265?
I don’t know really. I hope so but the dev team seems stretched thin and OpenPHT doesn’t appear to be actively developed. (based on their github activity)
I hope so as I love the UI.
@danjames92:
You’re mistaken. OpenPHT is very actively developed, and a new beta version is currently being tested and debugged (though I’ll state no release timeframe). It’s just that a lot of the work being done is not visible to you. (Unstable beta code can be handled locally, without github commits.)
As for HEVC, it might get added eventually, but there are no promises…
In any case, HEVC will never work well on low-end players (like RPi1 or old/cheap laptops), as it’s very demanding on system resources and CPU power for its decoding. So for many users the best solution will remain having PMS transcode the HEVC videos to a format easier for the players to handle.
Best regards: dlanor
@dlanor said:
@danjames92:
You’re mistaken. OpenPHT is very actively developed, and a new beta version is currently being tested and debugged (though I’ll state no release timeframe). It’s just that a lot of the work being done is not visible to you. (Unstable beta code can be handled locally, without github commits.)As for HEVC, it might get added eventually, but there are no promises…
In any case, HEVC will never work well on low-end players (like RPi1 or old/cheap laptops), as it’s very demanding on system resources and CPU power for its decoding. So for many users the best solution will remain having PMS transcode the HEVC videos to a format easier for the players to handle.Best regards: dlanor
Well I am glad to hear it as I really like the PHT UI. It’s just disappointing to see no progress so I assumed it wasn’t actively developed. Glad to hear it is not. 
@dlanor said:
@danjames92:
You’re mistaken. OpenPHT is very actively developed, and a new beta version is currently being tested and debugged (though I’ll state no release timeframe). It’s just that a lot of the work being done is not visible to you. (Unstable beta code can be handled locally, without github commits.)As for HEVC, it might get added eventually, but there are no promises…
In any case, HEVC will never work well on low-end players (like RPi1 or old/cheap laptops), as it’s very demanding on system resources and CPU power for its decoding. So for many users the best solution will remain having PMS transcode the HEVC videos to a format easier for the players to handle.Best regards: dlanor
Thanks for the information.
Do you know why DTS/DD 5.1 track is transcoded to stereo when PMS transcodes an HEVC movie ? That is a reason why some people hope OpenPHT can read HEVC soon !
@dlanor: With the advent of low-cost HTPC-class clients based on Intel’s Cherry Trail Atom, which have a full hardware decode engine for HEVC, and maybe even Pine64, the available platforms that can play HEVC is about to expand enormously. Transcoding HEVC is still a very difficult task. I really hope OpenPHT integrates HEVC support soon.
I do expect that HEVC will be supported at some point in the future, but it has to be done carefully.
The advent of new hardware with new capabilities does not automatically make all existing hardware share in those capabilities. And most people can’t afford to just throw away their old equipment and replace it with new stuff every year (or even every decade for some). So for many years to come a large percentage of cheap media player platforms will remain unable to cope with HEVC decoding of high resolution video.
So even if/when HEVC eventually becomes supported by OpenPHT, that implementation will need to include some option to enforce server-side transcoding for media using that CODEC type. Otherwise many who keep using current low-end media players will not be able to play such videos at all.
Best regards: dlanor
I would really like to see HEVC support in OpenPHT, including software decoding. With the release of x265 0.9 HEVC is now a great option to encode video. And while at it, Opus support would also be nice. I experimented with both over the last weeks and they seem to really give you the most quality per byte right now. 
