Back in October, I made a post on the /r/sysadmin Subreddit about HP and Dell disabling the HEVC Codec on some of their Business laptops. This post ended up spreading like wildfire, hitting virtually every mainstream tech media outlet, including Ars Technica, Tom’s Hardware, Videocardz, Guru3D, and Engadget. The news even made it to various tech podcasts, such as the LTT WAN Show, one such podcast I have been listening to since inception.
I made this post due to myself and others experiencing an issue on the HP ProBook 640 G11 where any video content encoded with HEVC would fail to decode in a number of instances. This decoding issue would masquerade as issues in Microsoft Edge where videos would infinitely load. The issue would occur in Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Teams (basically Chrome) and any other application which would call for HEVC decoding in Hardware. This would extend to other applications including Citrix Workspace (a remote desktop/remote application access platform). This is a non-conclusive list. Applications which did work, such as the VLC Media Player, would encounter issues requiring workarounds in order for the program to play back content. Windows Media Player / the Movies & TV App would work, with software fallback only.
What did Dell and HP do?
Well, it’s simple. They broke the HEVC codec because they chose not to purchase HEVC licensing for certain SKUs of systems. They did this to save about $0.22 (At the time) on the cost of making a PC. Maybe for good reason, but they lacked the foresight as to what the consequences of this decision would be.
HP
In the case of HP, the SKUs affected are a disjointed mess. Some models I found without HEVC Decode support include:
- HP ProBook 640 G11
- HP EliteBook 665 G11
- HP ProBook 465 G11
- HP ProBook 4 G1i 16-inch
- HP EliteBook 6 G1i 16-inch
Each of the links above point to the Quick Specs document published by HP for each model. Simply search for “HEVC” or “Codec” in the document, and you’ll find a statement saying HEVC Decoding is disabled at a platform level.
The one thing to mention about the above list is, these are HP’s Professional and Business line-up of laptops. You know, the ones commonly purchased for use at an office. Where the HEVC codec is likely used for Security Cameras and Video Playback. By executives to view their iPhone camera recordings. For training materials, Online Press Conferences (Like Apple Keynotes?), and TV. Typical office stuff. I performed checks against HP’s current laptop line-up (as of April 2026) as well as their consumer line-up of machines. I can only find mention of the HEVC codec being disabled on a disjointed segment of their Business laptops.
Many EliteBook models sold today are good to go. Others from the same general family with matching processors, have HEVC disabled. But one thing they all have in common is a price tag of at least $800, and the EliteBooks are higher class machines from the ProBooks. Some affected models easily punch over $1,800 for an i7 SKU that will thermal throttle 10 minutes into a Microsoft Teams meeting. Hilariously, I see no mention of HEVC disablement on HP’s consumer line-up on the checks I performed. I can’t confirm whether the codec is disabled at a platform level on some consumer systems without some community feedback.
This disjointment is really confusing. It’s almost trap-like. You buy the wrong model from the same family, and you’re stuck with a broken machine and out $800+.
Dell
Dell made an interesting move. Here’s a knowledge base article that seems to be completely withdrawn from their website at the moment. But the Internet Archive has it.
Dell states one of the following is required to get the HEVC Codec enabled on your hardware:
- An optional discrete graphics card
- An optional add-on video graphics card
- An integrated 4K display panel
- Dolby Vision
- A CyberLink Blu-Ray player
Here’s what is insane about what Dell is doing.
- Getting an optional add-on graphics card just to decode HEVC content is insane. On a laptop, a user is most likely going to be using Integrated Graphics for power savings, and HEVC will decode perfectly fine with that. Or if by Discrete Graphics, they mean a laptop with an NVIDIA MX250… the MX250 doesn’t even have an NVDEC Chip so it’s not decoding HEVC anyways. Unless we want to go back to 2008 and do it all with shaders, which is very power hungry and miserable.
- Getting a Discrete GPU is once again unnecessary. This rules out a significant class of PC buyers who are fine with onboard video but would benefit greatly from having HEVC Decode support. For Netflix. For their iPhone videos. For their TV provider. For the possible upgrade they make post-purchase to watch HEVC content on their PC. So they can enjoy NextGen TV on their device via an HDHomeRun. For their security cameras…
- You do not need a 4K Display to watch HEVC content. A lot of HEVC content is 1080p, with the codec being used to save bandwidth and storage space.
- Dolby Vision is not needed for HEVC content. In fact HEVC may be a dependency of Dolby Vision. A lot of HEVC content is still SDR, and even a lot of HDR content is not mastered with Dolby Vision.
- A CyberLink (Software) Blu-Ray player may apply HEVC licensing, but there has been a massive industry push to disallow 4K Blu-Ray playback on PC. Supposedly due to piracy reasons. Many “4K Ready” drives on the market for PC use received firmware updates to block Dual Layer Blu-Ray reading, restricting them to Single Layer reads. Which means no 4K Blu-Rays. 4K Blu-Rays are the HEVC encoded discs. The majority of the Single Layer Blu-Rays on the market for 1080p are mastered in H.264. Some older releases use the VC-1 codec which isn’t included in some modern GPU video engines anymore due to licensing and lack of general use. I have seen maybe one film get released on 1080p Blu-Ray with the ancient MPEG2 codec, and that is (a rather nice Chinese Wuxia film) House of Flying Daggers (十面埋). MPEG2 is what is used on DVDs, a technology dating back to the mid-to-late 1990s. MPEG2 decode support isn’t even included in newer GPUs these days just because the codec isn’t used very much, and is quite trivial to just decode in software on Pentium IIIs. Unlike HEVC.
On a Dell, you could spend upwards and beyond $2,000 and still not get HEVC support if you’re not careful about the parts you choose. Which means for $2,000 you bought a broken machine. Even though your processor’s onboard graphics have full support in the silicon. Forgot that 4K display? Didn’t purchase that useless NVIDIA MX250? Didn’t purchase that Blu-Ray drive that can’t read HEVC encoded 4K discs anyways? Too bad!
But somehow, a $100 Windows tablet with an Intel Atom Cherry Trail processor that is “Manufactured E-Waste” from Nuvision, can just play HEVC content. How’d that get an HEVC license? It costs less than a retail copy of Windows.
How are Dell and HP disabling the HEVC Codec?
Dell and HP have implemented the disablement for HEVC within the ACPI Tables. The ACPI Tables are responsible for a number of functions on a computer, including power management, assisting with automatic component configuration (no more setting IRQs!) and for discovering what hardware is installed in a system. It’s a pretty standard interface found on all modern PCs. In fact, ACPI is also used to automatically activate Windows following a fresh installation on HP and Dell systems, since the ACPI tables hold the embedded Windows License Key.
When a PC is assembled at the factory, the OEM will assign a SKU to the system. This is typically burned into write-once read many (WORM) memory found inside of all computers used to establish a system’s permanent identity. This SKU value allows for the enablement or disablement of features specific to certain configurations of the same laptop model. For example whether to expose the presence of a Dedicated GPU or, whether to expose a backlit keyboard function. HEVC is included in this, and there is a specific bit which is set to block HEVC decode during manufacture. Once the SKU is set it (generally) cannot be changed again on that motherboard.
For Windows, the operating system reads this ACPI table to determine what hardware is installed. When HP or Dell burn-in the SKU for a system that isn’t getting HEVC Decoding support, they are setting values into the ACPI Table which tells Windows HEVC is not available, or is blocked. DirectX won’t obtain access to decode HEVC, and programs won’t see the hardware decode path exposed through the Windows Media Foundation API. This is why trying Intel Generic Drivers instead of the HP or Dell supplied Intel drivers won’t make a difference.
Linux on the other hand, looks at ACPI for hardware configuration (optionally), but completely ignores the block bits which are being applied within the ACPI Table to restrict HEVC. As a result, installing Linux onto an affected piece of hardware from HP or Dell enables full HEVC encoding and decoding support. Linux simply accesses any available hardware directly and runs with it.
What all of this means is, the hardware is there and works, but a flag or value set within ACPI is telling Windows to not allow HEVC decode. There are ways around this as detailed by this Reddit post (Internet Archive Link). Doing so will defeat a number of security protections as you’re effectively forcing Windows to load “test” or unsigned ACPI Code.
Broken Behavior is a Defect!
The reason why disabling HEVC Decode support selectively via ACPI is problematic is the result of this action creating an edge case that was never accounted for in modern software. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and many other programs generally perform two basic checks to see whether a system supports a codec in hardware.
The first check is whether a system has the codec installed in the first place. When a user installs the HEVC Codec into Windows via the Microsoft Store, the codec is added into the Windows Media Foundation and API. Programs such as Chrome and Firefox prefer to use system codecs whenever possible, as doing so allows the software to be shipped without cumbersome licensing and royalty payments. This also allows these programs to remain distributable under various open source licenses. These programs access the codec and any other hardware acceleration for video through the Windows Media Foundation API. The Windows Media Foundation API then accesses Hardware Acceleration support for the GPU using DirectX Video Acceleration 2.0. This is something other programs can make use of too.
The second check these programs perform is a known hardware check against a GPU Blocklist / Featureset. The GPU Blocklist / Featureset is important as it allows the software to selectively disable or enable functions that could be offloaded to the GPU, without having to perform guess and check routines (and risk severe instability in the software or system in the process). These lists, as implemented, act upon installed hardware and software as well as installed driver versions. They do not act upon ACPI Tables, and cannot read the ACPI Tables as doing so requires administrative privileges! That would be a security risk for a browser.
If you’re curious what the GPU Blocklist / Featurelist does to impact behavior, open up Edge or Chrome and type in “edge://gpu” or “chrome://gpu” into the Address Bar. For Firefox, enter “about:support” into the address bar. As you’ll see in my example below from Microsoft Edge, my Linux system is using hardware acceleration, and the GPU Blocklist / Featurelist has disabled or applied workarounds to certain functions due to my GPU’s age, driver support, or because of certain features not being supported in Linux. Or just things that are downright broken. But Hardware acceleration is enabled, and Edge will try to make use of it wherever possible.
Click to Enlarge..
With that said, here’s where the “Defect” is. Many programs make an educated assumption on whether Hardware Decoding should be attempted. A GPU of a known generation or SKU is known to have certain hardware capabilities. You can see known capabilities for video decoding based on these lists for AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Intel. GPU manufacturers are not shipping unique SKUs of GPUs in most cases to OEMs, especially for common products such as Intel’s onboard Processor Graphics. If you have an Intel UHD 630 Graphics chip, or a AMD Vega 8 like I do, you will always have HEVC Decoding hardware onboard. There is no way around that fact. It should work if you call for it!
When programs like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge run with this assumption based on what GPU they detect, they look for and load the requested codec, and then make an API Call to request hardware decode support. What they didn’t account for is a situation where the API for HEVC decode isn’t working properly, or isn’t exposed when it should be present. This is what results in the “infinite loading” bug which occurs when accessing HEVC content on a broken system. Decoding isn’t occurring, and playback is impossible. The browsers should have the ability to fall back to Software Decoding, but because of the way they were designed, they will not unless Hardware Acceleration is completely disabled, or the code is modified to detect this issue and fall back.
Disabling Hardware Acceleration is a terrible idea, however. Doing so causes *other* programs to break. Many video conferencing solutions such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, require Hardware Acceleration in the browser in order to allow for camera effects like blurred backgrounds and screen sharing to function correctly. Hardware acceleration is also needed for NPU (you know, the fancy AI stuff) access. Netflix requires hardware acceleration for the DRM to work properly, otherwise video playback is restricted to 480p-looking 720p. WebGL functionality runs poorly or not at all. Plus, disabling hardware acceleration disables access to the *software* HEVC codec when it is provided by Windows Media Foundation. Which if the codec is installed through the Microsoft Store, is the case. If you have a web based camera viewer, such as how UniFi Protect’s camera playback functionality works, disabling hardware acceleration significantly reduces performance and makes the experience downright miserable, especially if you have a few cameras with the HEVC Codec and maybe one or two with the AV1 codec being used. The UniFi Camera portal will show a single JPEG snapshot preview image of the video, and will never finish loading when HEVC is requested on a broken system.
But Dell / HP said you can just purchase the codec for $1.99!
Yes but that doesn’t fix the problem or the software failure. All you’re purchasing is a software decoder. Programs will still attempt to perform hardware decoding. If you force install the free “HEVC Codec from Device Manufacturer” package which you can find side-loadable copies of on the Internet, you get the same software decoder you get by paying $1.99 for systems which didn’t ship with an HEVC License.
In fact, even when you don’t purchase or install the codec, some software like VLC Media player remain broken. VLC Media Player ships with an open source implementation of the HEVC codec provided by the ffmpeg projec. It doesn’t rely on the Windows Media Foundation codecs, and will attempt to use DXVA 2.0 directly to obtain hardware accelerated video decode. When VLC fails to obtain this hardware decoding pipeline, you’ll see up to a second of video render (or a blank screen), then the entire video frame stops. You’ll hear audio, maybe, and that’s it. Your only recourse to playing any HEVC content in VLC Media Player is to disable GPU Hardware Acceleration. Even though the open source codec can and should work perfectly on the hardware.
Obviously if HEVC is too troublesome, you could just not use the codec. But this isn’t possible in every situation. For example, you may not control the streaming content you’re trying to play. Most video players online don’t allow you to select the codec, and another set don’t even let you allow you to select the bitrate.
Re-enabling HEVC is the ONLY acceptable fix.
Sure, I realize HEVC is a patent and licensing minefield. At this point, the codec has proven to be nothing but a headache. We should all stop using it as the situation is worse than H.264 was. H.264 was less of a minefield during an earlier time, before companies got together to ensure the codec is widely adopted and accessible (Cisco adding H.264 support to Firefox). But back then, you did not see companies going out of their way to disable access to the GPU hardware acceleration for codecs like MPEG2 or MPEG4 just because the system didn’t ship with a license to decode the media for that codec. If they wanted to disable decoding support, they didn’t build it into the silicon (or it was fused off and sold as an entirely different SKU identifiable through the driver). This is because it was very common for people to purchase software (like CyberLink for DVD Decoding) or to download codecs for Windows Media Player, install them, and enjoy their video content. It was also common for Windows to just ship with these codecs, which people could obtain by simply buying a newer copy of Windows.
People bought and paid for the decoder hardware. An HEVC license needed to be paid by Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, and Qualcomm in order to implement the codec into silicon and support for it into the drivers before the product even got to the consumer. Consumers have the power to purchase or install software which allow them to perform decoding of HEVC content. But even when the patents and licensing for HEVC start to loosen up, and companies start to come together to help make the codec more accessible, these machines with broken HEVC functionality due to the ACPI Tables will remain broken. They will all require software checks and workarounds to identify the issue, and for a small subset of machines. I highly doubt Dell and HP will ever release a fix for these systems or provide compensation despite their spec sheets.
The ONLY fix Dell and HP can and should do is to deploy a BIOS update to the system which overrides the HEVC disablement functionality in ACPI, to allow Windows to use the decoder. They don’t have to enable the free HEVC codec download from Microsoft. In fact, that is optional. They just need to bring these machines to the same level of support that a DIY computer would get, where someone pays $1.99 and then they have full hardware and software decoding support. If this means going back and paying $0.22 or so per machine that was sold retroactively, it’s just the cost of doing business at this point. Neither brand I’m sure wants to be known for selling buggy, broken computers with snapping hinges and poor keyboard QA over $0.22.
What also needs to happen to fix this problem is regulations on how aggressively licensing for codecs, especially codecs more than a decade old and in critical mass, can cost. Firms such as Via and Access Advance who license the HEVC codec, are still announcing price hikes for the 10+ year old codec. Price hikes for the 20+ year old AVC (H.264) Codec are also being announced. 20 years later! The H.264 codec has not changed in a significant manner to warrant a price hike! HEVC is still evolving in some regards, with 10-bit and 12-bit hardware encoders and decoders being released, but at this point a price hike is also unwarranted. There is no free market for this stuff as it is patent encumbered. By the time the patents expire, everyone has moved on. Building a replacement codec is also a massive minefield thanks to the companies behind codecs like HEVC and AVC.
To add insult to injury, many large corporations such as Google have created competing codecs such as VP8, VP9, and AV1 in order to keep costs down for consumers. They’re obviously not doing this purely out of the goodness of their hearts, but because doing so has a net benefit to everyone including themselves. Financials, adoption, support, and more. Yet… there’s this insistence to continue throwing around the patent might to take down these royalty-free codecs.
So I get it. Dell and HP are fighting the good fight here, going after big evil codec and proving that the HEVC codec should be dead, and needs to die unless the licensing ship can be righted. But this is messed up and not the way to do it. The products are broken. The software is broken. Everything is just a broken experience.
Everyone. Just fix it. Stop suing each other. Stop suing others. Just fix the codecs.
On an ending note just to add some more insult to injury. Apple is one of the companies involved and holding patents for the creation of the HEVC Codec. They were one of the first companies to bring the codec to mass market by including it into the iPhone and iPad, and by advertising HEVC as a space-saving encoding mechanism for videos. They managed to release the MacBook Neo recently, which is a $600-$700 machine to act as their entry level MacBook. The MacBook Neo has HEVC support which works. It costs less than an EliteBook, ProBook, and most consumer and business Dell laptops worth buying. But you can be sure by buying one that your iPhone videos, security cameras, and online streaming media are going to work out of the box. Apple paid their licensing fees to give hardware purchasers the experience they need to have working. Even open source codecs like VP8 and VP9 are implemented (not AV1 sadly) with the Neo. Their laptops with the M series processors starting with the M3 even have support for AV1 decode in the hardware, as well as VP9, despite how controversial those codecs can be around the patents they may infringe upon. The Neo isn’t meant to target the professional users that an EliteBook or ProBook target. But the HEVC codec is still there.
I also have to beg the question… why do the consumer laptops have working HEVC but a Pro machine doesn’t?
