Synology Photos, HEVC Playback not supported - solution!

[L0rdCha0s]

Hi everyone!

Like several others I've been frustrated by the lack of support for HEVC video playback in Synology Photos (i.e. for photo/video libraries 'copied' into Synology Photos rather than uploaded via the mobile app)

I decided to solve this - I've made a script that hunts through imported folder trees, finds missing entries in the Synology Photos PostgreSQL database and @eaDir converted video previews - and creates both (i.e. inserts into the PostgreSQL database and uses ffmpeg to create an h264 video in @eaDir like Photos itself does).

It's super bleeding-edge, but it does work - and doesn't seem to break anything. Is anyone else interested in testing it with me?

 

[L0rdCha0s]

Here's a link to where I posted on Reddit to explain how to set it up, along with the link to the Gist:

 

[joacimlundin]

Hi @L0rdCha0s,
I really like your solution but today (when I reinstalled my DS220+) I found the official plugin with codecs for HEVC. It´s named Advanced Media Extensions. Have you tried it?

 

[L0rdCha0s]

Hi @L0rdCha0s,
I really like your solution but today (when I reinstalled my DS220+) I found the official plugin with codecs for HEVC. It´s named Advanced Media Extensions. Have you tried it?

Hi there,

yes - in fact my script uses the ffmpeg from that package to generate videos

That package provides support for the rest of the file station to generate HEVC previews, but not Photos for some reason

 

[tb123]

According to the notes within the package it DOES support Synology Photos.
If you are finding otherwise, might pay to log a job with support.

 

[L0rdCha0s]

Ok - let me be more specific

It does support Photos, but only for videos that are actually uploaded into Photos directly

If a video is copied in using File Station, even when you do a reindex it doesn’t convert HEVC

 

[tb123]

There was an update to the Advanced Media Extensions package today

 

[allannz]

On the other hand, I have some family videos in HEVC format that existed in Photo Station (DSM 6) and when upgraded to DSM 7, they play just fine in Synology Photos. However, if I add these same videos directly into the Photos folder in DSM 7, they won't play (as above). I did log a ticket with Synology who give the response - not supported.

 

[AlekseyMko]

I faced the same problem but found something interesting!

HEVC is fully supported by the Safari browser and only Safari at this moment ("hevc" | Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc)

I checked this and my HEVC videos work just fine in Safari!!

But at the beginning I could see only black screen instead of video.
Do the following to fix:
Go to Safari > Settings for this Website… > Auto-Play: Allow All Auto-Play

 

[L0rdCha0s]

Yep - good call, I found the same thing in Safari - well found on the solution.

Having said that, I'm not a huge Safari fan..