How do I play H.265/HEVC via vlc?

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nevermoreraven
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Joined: 10/15/2014

I am unable to play hevc. Is there a free software repo I can use?

Magic Banana

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For players using the GStreamer plugins (such as Trisquel's default player), there is this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~strukturag/+archive/ubuntu/libde265

For more players, there is this PPA, which includes VLC 2.2.1: https://launchpad.net/~mc3man/+archive/ubuntu/trusty-media

The usual warning applies: these repositories being out of the control of Trisquel, they may include proprietary software or even malware. Even if they do not now, they could tomorrow and have you install it along an apparently trifling update.

SuperTramp83

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>The usual warning applies: these repositories being out of the control of Trisquel, they may include proprietary software or even malware. Even if they do not now, they could tomorrow and have you install it along an apparently trifling update.

very well said, I wish this warning be posted each time there is a ppa recommendation. +45

strypey
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Joined: 05/14/2015

Given that we currently seem to have a choice between installing the PPA, or not being able to play HEVC files, pouring scorn on people choosing to install the PPA is rather like pouring scorn on people drinking polluted water when their only alternative is to not drink water at all. If and when a more recent release of VLC that supports HEVC out of the box becomes available through the Trisquel repos, there will no need to take the risk installing the PPA. Any idea when this might happen?

Magic Banana

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You will not die if you do not watch HEVC videos. The PPA probably are fine if you do not want to wait for Trisquel 8 (where those formats will certainly be supported).

nevermoreraven
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Joined: 10/15/2014

For How to for others who read this post and wonder why it doesn't work. Here is the commands to get vlc to be able to play x265/hevc.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-libde265

Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/105587/how-to-update-vlc-to-the-latest-version

nevermoreraven
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I tried using the ppa that supposedly is the official for videolan to update vlc but it isn't as up to date as mc3man ppa so it won't work to solve the payback issues with vlc and x265/hevc codec.

https://launchpad.net/~videolan/+archive/ubuntu/stable-daily
http://nightlies.videolan.org/

davidnotcoulthard (not verified)
davidnotcoulthard

To anybody who does this without a GPU capable of HEVC: How much CPU does playing the file take?

Calinou
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Joined: 03/08/2014

It uses the CPU a lot more than H.264 (when comparing x264 to x265): http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/x265-hevc-encoder,3565-3.html

davidnotcoulthard (not verified)
davidnotcoulthard

That's encoding - I'm pretty sure playing the file is decoding, isn't it?

Magic Banana

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It is. But it takes more CPU as well.

davidnotcoulthard (not verified)
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Hence my (as-of yet unanswered) question.........open to be answered by anyone in the mood to be bothered to.

Allanitomwesh
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Joined: 10/24/2015

Convert to Ogg,problem solved :)

t3g
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Joined: 05/15/2011

Theora? Eww. If you are converting away from a high quality codec like H.265, you are better off using VP9 and putting into a VP9/Opus WebM or MKV.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

How to convert to ogg or to x264? I tried a file with ogg converter (default comes with Trisquel) but it only recognizes audio. I installed the vlc with the commands suggested above and can play the file but need to convert it to a lower resolution. How should I get ogg converter to recognize video?

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

You can transcode with VLC. But it is easier to use a specialized program. Try Transmageddon, which is in Trisquel's repository.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Thanks for the recommendation, I actually will save that for other occasions, the programs seems good. I actually had a go at it with ffmpeg and it worked kinda nice.

Now I have a problem: I added the repos above mentioned and installed the needed stuff. But it also updated a lot of other programs (due to the PPA having newer versions). However now I want to remove all that and get back to the stuff available on Trisquel repo. I tried using synaptic and choose to list software by "origin". Thought I would remove all the software and install again from the repo (removing the PPA from sources.list first). However when I try to do that, synaptic says it will remove almost all the apps I have installed even apps that are not part of these PPA's. How to do it and avoid messing up my system?

Thanks in advance.

Magic Banana

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Following what you started (listing the packages installed from a given origin), you can then click on the first package that is listed and try Ctrl+E (to force the version). If a window appear, then choose the "belenos" version. Otherwise, it means the package was only in the PPA and you can use Shift+Del to purge it. Down arrow to the next package and reiterate the process.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

I didn't know that. It would have been simpler than the method I used (read comments below). But it would take a lot of time if it was a PPA with a lot of packages, so PPA-Purge is still a useful piece of software (though it could be better).
Thanks for the info!

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Should one use ppa-purge? for this? Or will it also cause the removal of other packages?

GNUser
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So just to answer my own question, I used PPA-Purge to start getting rid of this stuff, and it worked... to a certain extent. It only removes packages that are present in Trisquel repos so I had to mannually remove those and their dependencies afterwards. Also, for some reason even some packages that were in Trisquel repos were not removed.
After using PPA-Purge I had to install apt-show-versions and check for the "No available" packages, remove those, I also had to use apt-get autoremove / clean / autoclean, to get rid of dependencies. Afterwards went to synaptic and checked for any packages that I knew was supposed to be deleted was wasn't. I think it is done now... Damn it is a lot of work to get rid of a PPA stuff :( PPA-Purge should have an option of forceably delete all packages that belong to that PPA even if there is no repository counterpart.