Linus Tech Tips Discussion

 HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops’ CPUs Summary   Device manufacturers like Dell and HP are blocking hardware support for the HEVC/H265 codec in some models, even if the hardware (CPU/iGPU) supports it.   Quotes Quote While HP’s and Dell’s reps didn’t explain the companies’ motives, it’s possible that the OEMs are looking to minimize costs, since OEMs may pay some or all of the licensing fees associated with HEVC hardware decoding and encoding support, as well as some or all of the royalties per the number of devices that they sell with HEVC hardware decoding and encoding support.   My thoughts   This seems very anti-consumer and will lead to frustration for users trying to figure out why their content won't work. Since the OEMs won't disclose why they are doing this, it stands to reason the only correlation is due to the price per device rising from $0.20 to $0.24, which means that they could be on the hook for a few extra million per device model in royalties. This is a good time to point out that alternative open-source codecs exist like AV1 or VP9.   Digging into this it appears that they have disabled the features in ACPI tables, meaning that Windows won't know the hardware supports HEVC and therefore cannot display the content. You can get around this by purchasing the $0.99 codec from the Microsoft Store, or by using a 3rd party media player like VLC. However, this will still only allow software decoding/encoding. You can also install Linux and get full hardware acceleration back since it doesn't use the specific ACPI tables they are using. TLDR this is a bad and anti-consumer move.   Sources https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/hp-and-dell-disable-hevc-support-built-into-their-laptops-cpus/ https://devinthreethousand.substack.com/p/hevc-hardware-support-being-removed