Hey there,

I’ve been using Firefox for ages now, and I was completely satisfied with it… until very recently, that is. For space-saving reasons, I started to convert my media library to H265, since all devices in my network support it now. Or so I thought. One very noticeable omission is my desktop PC with Firefox. Now, if I watch something from my local media server, the server has to waste resources to convert to H264, which is a noticeable performance hit to all other things running on the server. The GPU in my Desktop PC (or the CPU for that matter) could have displayed H265 without even changing clock speed from idle. So I tried to use the native Plex App for Windows for that, but that one does not support RTX Super Resolution which was really nice when watching old DVD stuff.

From what I can see, to get both, I need a Chromium browser. Since I would rather not have two browsers open all the time: Is there any browser based on the latest Chromium Builds that is not a massive insult to one’s privacy?

solution:

Firefo does support H265. It didn’t for a very long time so most posts online talk about how it has no support and that it ain’t planned. Yet, it has gotten support in the meantime.

change

media.wmf.hevc.enabled

To 1 in about:config, restart browser, done.

Thanks, mate

  • NorgurOP
    78•9 months ago

    Holy… why the fuck would this be disabled? And why the fuck didn’t I find this information in the first place?!

    To all wondering: change

    media.wmf.hevc.enabled

    To 1 in about:config, restart browser, done.

    Thanks, mate

    • Atemu
      55•9 months ago

      The reason is software patents and asinine licensing for HEVC. Thank the greedy fucks in suits for that.

      • NorgurOP
        17•9 months ago

        So it can be implemented but not enabled? Weird shit, man

        • Atemu
          17•9 months ago

          AFAIK, this is a Windows-specific option which requires the user to have purchased a license for the Windows HEVC decoder on the windows store.

        • Ephera
          10•9 months ago

          Could be that Firefox downloads the codec after you enable that. At least, I’ve heard of it being implemented like that in other software…

      • NorgurOP
        10•9 months ago

        Well, I thought I had ruled out X as solution, so I didn’t ask about it in the first place <insert hide the pain Harold here>

      • @[email protected]
        7•9 months ago

        Story of my life. Fortunately, now that I’m older, I often catch myself and provide the context. But not always.