Owners of certain Dell and HP laptops have been puzzled by their inability to play HEVC/H.265 content in web browsers, despite their processors being equipped with integrated decoding support. Laptops with sixth-generation Intel Core processors and later are designed to handle HEVC decoding and encoding, and AMD chips have included such support since 2015. However, Dell and HP have chosen to disable this capability on some of their popular business laptops.
HPâs data sheets for the affected laptops, such as the HP ProBook 460 G11, ProBook 465 G11, and EliteBook 665 G11, include a note that explicitly states, âHardware acceleration for CODEC H.265/HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) is disabled on this platform.â
Despite this documented information, users find it unsettling to have modern laptops' web browsers continually load videos that media players can run without issues. A system administrator on Reddit shared that older hardware isn't facing these problems, while newer machines require users to either uninstall the HEVC codec from the Microsoft Store on Microsoft Media Foundation or to disable hardware acceleration in their browsers, which leads to further issues like the absence of background blurring during conferences and reduced system performance.
Similar experiences have been reported by owners of certain Dell laptops, although finding information about HEVC hardware decoding on Dell models can be challenging. For example, the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 laptop does not mention HEVC anywhere on its product page, nor in the âNotes, cautions, and warningsâ or the specifications sections of its online ownerâs manual. Some information is available on a general support page, stating that Dell laptops support HEVC content streaming only on certain computer configurations.