HP and Dell Block Built-in HEVC Support on Laptops
▼ Summary
– Some Dell and HP laptops cannot play HEVC/H.265 content in web browsers despite having processors with built-in hardware support for decoding this codec.
– Both manufacturers have disabled HEVC hardware decoding on certain popular business notebooks, including specific HP ProBook and EliteBook models.
– HP discloses this limitation in its product data sheets, while Dell’s information is harder to find and not mentioned on individual product pages.
– This issue causes web browsers to struggle with HEVC video playback, forcing users to disable hardware acceleration or remove the codec, which degrades system performance and features.
– Users with older hardware are unaffected, while those with newer affected laptops must use workarounds that compromise functionality like background blurring in conference apps.
Many users of modern HP and Dell laptops have encountered a puzzling limitation: their devices cannot play HEVC or H.265 video content through web browsers, even though their processors include dedicated hardware for this purpose. This situation creates a noticeable gap between the hardware’s capabilities and the actual user experience, leading to confusion and inconvenience for those who rely on their laptops for media consumption.
Laptops equipped with sixth-generation Intel Core processors or newer, along with AMD chips released since 2015, possess integrated hardware support for decoding and encoding the HEVC video format. This built-in feature is designed to handle high-efficiency video smoothly without overburdening the main processor. Despite this, both Dell and HP have chosen to disable the hardware acceleration for HEVC on several of their popular business-class notebook models.
HP has been relatively transparent about this limitation in the official documentation for affected devices. Data sheets for models like the HP ProBook 460 G11, ProBook 465 G11, and EliteBook 665 G11 explicitly state that “Hardware acceleration for CODEC H.265/HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) is disabled on this platform.” While this disclosure exists, the practical effect can still be jarring for an owner who discovers their modern machine cannot play a video in a browser that plays perfectly in a standalone media player.
The issue was highlighted recently in a Reddit community for system administrators, where users shared their experiences. One administrator noted that people with older hardware faced no such problems, while those with newer laptops had to resort to workarounds. These fixes include completely removing the HEVC codec obtained from the Microsoft Store from the Microsoft Media Foundation or disabling hardware acceleration within the web browser itself. Unfortunately, these solutions often introduce new complications, such as the loss of background blur features in video conferencing software and a significant drop in overall system performance during video-related tasks.
A similar situation affects some Dell laptop owners, as the manufacturer has also disabled HEVC hardware decoding on certain models. However, finding this information for Dell products is considerably more difficult. For instance, the product page for the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 laptop, which has this feature disabled, does not mention HEVC at all. A search through the “Notes, cautions, and warnings” section or the technical specifications in the online owner’s manual also yields no results. The most accessible confirmation comes from a general support page that outlines the specific computer configurations required for HEVC content streaming on Dell laptops.
(Source: Ars Technica)
