HP and Dell have deliberately disabled hardware video decoding using the HEVC (H.265) video codec in a number of modern laptops, despite the fact that the AMD and Intel processors used in these laptops technically support this feature. HP has mentioned the disabling of HEVC hardware acceleration in the specifications of certain ProBook and EliteBook models. On the other hand, Dell’s situation is not very transparent – although the official specifications do not have any warnings, the company’s support service has confirmed that HEVC is not available on basic configurations without discrete graphics, a 4K screen, or a multimedia license package.
Both companies have chosen not to provide an explanation for this decision. It is believed that the disabling of HEVC support is likely due to the desire to reduce licensing costs. Since January, licensing fees for each device with HEVC support have been on the rise, and by disabling this function, manufacturers are able to avoid additional payments.
Consequently, users are left with devices where part of the processor’s capabilities are deliberately restricted. To decode HEVC on such devices, representatives from HP and Dell are recommending users to utilize third-party software implementations of the codec. This restriction has been met with criticism as HEVC has long been the standard for video conferencing, video streaming, and multimedia content processing.