Home » Play H.265/HEVC video on iOS 11 using the native video player 

Play H.265/HEVC video on iOS 11 using the native video player 

Apple just massively improves the quality of photo and video experiences, including High Dynamic Range. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) can double photo and video storage capacity, and cut the time to upload or share by half. HEVC video compression and HEIF photo compression are coming to iOS 11 and MacOS High Sierra. Does it also mean iPhone 8/Plus/7/6s/SE/6/5s will support playing H.265/HEVC video natively on iOS 11? It has become a frequently asked question after this year's WWDC. Don’t worry, this post will give you the best answer.

Does iOS 11 devices Play H.265/HEVC Natively?

Theoretically speaking, it seems that there is no problem to play H.265/HEVC video on iOS 11 devices if the HEVC video is recorded by your iOS 11 camera app. As for the H.265/HEVC video from external devices like computer, it's still unclear if iOS 11 devices can accept such HEVC/H265 videos. What's worse, Apple claims that you can't use HEVC format on iPhone until your iOS device at least sports with A9 chip.

Even if worse comes to worst, you can still play HEVC (H.265) video on iOS 11 iPhone 8/7/Plus/6s/SE/6/Plus/5s after H.265 to H.264 video conversion or with HEVC video player for iPhone.

Best H.265/HEVC Video Converter & HEVC video player for iOS 11

Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate for Windows is an all-in-one H.265 encoder, decoder and H.265 video editor. With the program, you can comprehensively encode virtually any digital video file formats and also commercial Blu-ray/DVD disc into H.265/H.264 format. The encoding speed can be accelerated about 30X faster than before. 

Key Features:

# Encode all variety of video files including H.265/HEVC, H.264/AVC, MP4, MOV, AVI, WMV, ASF, MPG, MKV, VOB, FLV, AVCHD, MXF, TS, RMVB, Xvid, Divx etc. to H.265 MP4/MKV

# Decode H.265/HEVC videos to other video format like H.265 MP4, H.264 MP4, Xvid, Divx, AVI, MOV, M4V, MKV, WMV, MPG, etc. or directly convert H.265 video to audio format like MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, Apple Lossless, AIFF, FLAC, RA, AU, DTS and etc.

# Edit H.265 like merge H.265 files into one, crop H.265, trim H.265, rotate H.265 video, add subtitles/watermark to H.265/HEVC video, adjust the H.265 parameter like bitrates, frame rate, aspect ratio, audio volume and etc.

# Rip Blu-ray and DVD to H.265/HEVC or H.264/AVC vieo files.

Please note that Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate is designed for Windows use specifically. If you are runing MacOS Sierra, please use the equivalent Pavtube iMedia Converter for Mac, which is compatible with macOS High Sierra, macOS Sierra, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, etc.

Quick Guide: How to Decode HEVC and Convert H.265/HEVC to H.264?

Step 1: Load H.265/HEVC files via "File" > "Add Video/Audio" button or just drag and drop H.265 files to this top HEVC video converter. Batch conversion is supported.

load video/dvd/blu-ray

Step 2: Select H.264 from format bar. The most popular video MP4, MOV, M4V are formatted with H.264 or MPEG-4. For play H.265/HEVC on iOS 11 devices without any problem, choose the one with H.264 codec.

Step 3: Press "Convert" button and this H.265 video converter will begin to convert H.265/HEVC videos to H.264 on computer. After the HEVC to H.264 conversion is over, you can eventually transfer HEVC to iOS 11 devices for smooth playback.

Another effective solution you can try is to switch to another HEVC video player. CnX Player and H265 are the top two choices for your reference.

HEVC video player for iOS 11
CnX Player
H265
License Free Free
Compatibility iOS 8 or higher iOS 6 or later
Overview CnX Player is a HD video player application for iPhone iPad iPod, which allows you to play almost any video file, irrespective of standard video file MP4, MOV, AVI, FLV, or HD file MKV, TS, MTS, etc. In short, it can handle whatever you feed to it. As its name suggests, H265 is a High Efficiency Video Coding player app designed for you to play HEVC/H.265 video files and network streams in the MKV format on iPhone iPad iPod. In addition, this HEVC video player also enables you to stream HEVC video files from the network and watch HEVC content offline. H265 compared with H264, it will help you save up to 50% network bandwidth for HEVC movie streaming.
Main Features 1. Play HEVC H265 video on iPhone, as well as 4K and HD video of H264, AVC and VP9.
2. Play MKV, MP4, 3GP, MOV, AVI, TS, FLV and other standard video formats.
3. Support audio playback of AAC, MP3, MP2, MP1 and OGG Vorbis.
4. Let you rename, delete, move and copy HEVC files with video management features.
1. Play HEVC H265 movie on iPhone iPad after downloading HEVC mobile movie.
2. Other video format playback also supported, like MP4, MOV, M4V, AVI, etc.
3. Play Video Stream feature allows users to stream video from network or add video via iTunes file sharing and watch them on iPhone offline.

Read More: What does HEVC do better than H.264?

HEVC is designed to save space and bandwidth, which will be more and more important as more 4K and HDR video becomes available to stream. Apple says the standard can compress 4K video files to 40% of the size without losing quality, which will let iOS 11 and High Sierra users store more of their own videos before running out of drive space. Alternatively, you can keep an HEVC video file about the same size while doubling the amount of data, which will decrease the bandwidth needed to move 4K and HDR video around.

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