YouTube HDR... finally

[Kuschelmonschter]

YouTube HDR content is finally available!

You will find a playlist here. However, these clips will be played as SDR on Sonys for now.

With youtube-dl you can find vp9.2 encodings for those clips:

330          webm       256x144    144p60  156k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 2.38MiB
331          webm       426x240    240p60  256k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 3.87MiB
332          webm       640x360    360p60  485k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 7.35MiB
333          webm       854x480    480p60  909k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 13.83MiB
334          webm       1280x720   720p60 1991k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 28.18MiB
335          webm       1920x1080  1080p60 3201k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 49.70MiB
336          webm       2560x1440  1440p60 11166k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 170.23MiB
337          webm       3840x2160  2160p60 20122k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 335.45MiB

Those are webm however which the native Video app won't play.

We will see whether we will get support for it soon, even for the early 2016 models with the old MediaTek SoC from last year. At least Sony promised that back at CES:

Spoiler

YouTube will also start streaming in HDR quality later this year, using a new VP9-Profile 2 codec that brings HDR support to Google’s VP9 video format. Sony’s Motoi Kawamura, Head of TV Product Planning for Sony Europe, confirmed to FlatpanelsHD that the 2016 models will support VP9-Profile 2 and be capable of streaming YouTube in HDR. We saw a demo at CES and it looked very good.

Source

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

Concerning HDR, I don't think Plex does anything special and it should work in Kodi too. HDR metadata is encoded in HEVC or VP9.2 bitstream. So when HW decoding video, the decoder will find the data and do the rest. In case of MediaCodec Surface mode, the TV is also responsible for rendering video. So neither do the apps' renderers have to support HDR. They only have to render the UI. I can't verify with "The World in HDR" since this is VP9.2 which my TV can't handle. I can only play the 4K VP9 SDR stream. Would have to try some HEVC HDR...

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Now that you made me thinking about it, I think the (no) HDR issue is with vp9.2 videos only... Indeed I started to see it after I downloaded the first YouTube HDR videos (like The World in HDR).

I thought it worked like you described indeed. But so it makes even less sense. Why a media player shows it in HDR and the Sony's stock app doesn't? What is doing Plex that Video nor Kodi are doing? Obviously I don't discard the possibility of a bug in the vp9.2 profile implementation/decoder/codec/whatever, new in Android 7.0.

I mean, it isn't a big deal to me for now. Plex plays it so I am happy. But my money is in YouTube following the Video/Kodi route (which is different from the current YouTube v2.0 case, I suppose).

Instead I'd love to know what's so special about profile vp9.2, unsupported by half of the Android TV hardware around (Nvidia Shield included, I've read), that Google choose it.

[Kuschelmonschter]

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Instead I'd love to know what's so special about profile vp9.2, unsupported by half of the Android TV hardware around (Nvidia Shield included, I've read), that Google choose it.

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Well, it is Google's own format .

I honestly wouldn't have believed that VP9.2 worked already. Before YouTube HDR, you could not find any samples to try it out. The YouTube player on Android TV still does not support it today. Sony/MediaTek can't even get common things working properly. So how can you expect something that hardly exists to work yet?

Guess it needs some more time.

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

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Instead I'd love to know what's so special about profile vp9.2, unsupported by half of the Android TV hardware around (Nvidia Shield included, I've read), that Google choose it.

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Well, it is Google's own format .

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Oh.. No wonder it is such a mess, then.

[Kuschelmonschter]

2.0.0.18 arrived today in my Play Store..

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

2.0.0.18 arrived today in my Play Store..

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Yup. And it has the same identical issues it has in 2.00.17. Hardly going to 4K, no HDR, logging in the non default channel. Google can't even support its own OS rightly.

[Kuschelmonschter]

Also video playback is still a total pain on Sony with YouTube 2.0. Even for 1080p60, lots of frames are being dropped. CPU usage is very high. High frame rate 4K video is not watchable since player goes up to 1440p60 which implies even more frame dropping. And you can't manually change Quality anymore. Luckily it does not go all the way up to 2160p60...

I added this problem to my bug list here.

It is a total shame what Google delivers here. 1080p60 is already jerky for both, YouTube app and also generally for Chromecast.

Some Google issue:

[YouTube] 2160p60 clips only played at up to 1440p

[YouTube 2.0] Jerky video playback / high CPU load

[Chromecast] 1080p60 not smooth

Might all be due to the slow SoC and not very well optimized Google apps/services.

@Anonymous  may be kind enough to forward...

[Anonymous]

First thing is first. 

• Disable the Click Click sound in the settings of the YouTube app. 
• Disable Autoplay too.
• Disable 'Improving YouTube'

How annoying!

[Anonymous]

@Kuschelmonschter

I can confirm and will report to Sony.

I can notice the juddering and cpu load - just pressing the volume button and you can see the lag

Edit:

I cannot even play 2160p30 videos.  They play at 1440 at 24, 25, 30 and 60 - can you confirm?

[Kuschelmonschter]

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Edit:

I cannot even play 2160p30 videos.  They play at 1440 at 24, 25, 30 and 60 - can you confirm?

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Yes. It has already been mentioned in my above posting and can also be found in my bug list. It was also the case with YouTube 1.X.

30fps sources usually don't have a 60fps stream. I think that it is generally the case that 2160p clips only play at up to 1440p on Sony.

Philips Android TV on the other hand can go up to 2160p, but only at 30fps. As already mentioned there does not seem to be a reason why high frame rate 4K content is limited in that way on MediaTek based TVs. Other apps can handle 2160p60.

[Jecht_Sin]

With my XD80 (ATV2) these are the issues:

1. We can't select the YouTube channel anymore: It was already reported to Google.
2. HDR vp9.2 videos never play as HDR (I reported this to Google).
3. 60 fps video only reach 1440p@60fps as mentioned already.
4. It is using much more CPU compared to v 1.3.11.

Still, at least after immediately rebooting the TV, the vision is fluid with 1440p60fps videos. Then something must go wrong in the OS because it stutters. But when it happens "Discovery" also usually reloads, and performances are ugly. I have more or less the same behaviour with Amazon Video and even Plex to a lesser extent.

Also I am afraid the 2. is Bravia dependant and not YouTube dependant. The same video(s) downloaded with youtube-dl play in HDR with Plex (but not using the right BT.2020 colors, it seems), and they do not play as HDR at all with Video or Kodi. As if the two apps can't recognize they are vp9.2 videos.

PS: With Google Cast, streaming the same videos from the phone, they reach 4K.