Best Workaround to Play HEVC/H.265 Files on Samsung Smart TV without Issues

“I can’t play HEVC files on Samsung smart TV. What should I do?” Quoted from Quora.

Actually, you could find a lot of questions like the above one about HEVC files on Samsung TV playback issues. This guide would show you how to play HEVC files on Samsung Smart TV with practical solutions.

A very small number of Smart TV models supported playing HEVC or h.265 video in late 2014. Several models in 2015 supported the format. By 2017 and onward nearly all smart TVs should have support for the format.

I have a 40″ 4K Samsung 2015 model I bought in 2016. Why I bought a previous year’s model was because A. I got a super good price B. it had one more HDMI port than the model that replaced it C. it had an S-Video port which the 2016 model didn’t have.

However some manufacturers have disabled support for HEVC on smaller models, even if they’re 1080p. A friend bought a 24″ Samsung smart TV for his bedroom a couple of years ago. I bet it *could* play HEVC because it shows thumbnail images for such videos on a storage device connected to the USB port. But upon attempting to play them it fails and replaces the icon with a grey ‘film’ icon with a red NO symbol over it.

Since it’s still hard to run H.265 videos on Samsung smart TVs, it is necessary for us to transcode H.265/HEVC videos for playback on Samsung smart TV with a professional HEVC encoder/decoder. DumboFab Video Converter is surely the best HEVC/H.265 Converter that supports converting HEVC files to MP4 H.264 or in any formats faultlessly. So it would be easy to encode it to a new file for playing on your Samsung TV.

Performing as an all-in-one video converter, DumboFab Video Converter plays a pivotal role in transforming HEVC media content with 100% source quality retained. Not only does the beefy tool respond to HEVC input such as H.265 MKV and H.265 MP4, but it also supplies a lot of normal video and audio from MP4, MKV, MOV, to HD MP4, HD AVI, HD TS, HD VOB, 4K MP4, 4K MKV, and so on.

This detailed tutorial will demonstrate how to play HEVC on Samsung TV with the help of DumboFab Video Converter.

Step 1. Run the converter and add HEVC files.
Drag and drop the wanted HEVC media into the program. Or click on the “Add Video”.

Step 2. Select output format.
In the Format bar, move mouse cursor to Common Video category and select H.264 High Profile Video(*.mp4) as the target format. Or you can ignore the video format, and select the device profile according to your device model.

Step 3. Start encoding HEVC videos.
Hit Convert button to start to convert HEVC/H.265 to MP4 for playing HEVC on Samsung TV.

Tip & Tricks for Viewing HEVC/H.265 on Samsung TV:

  1. HEVC is a bit different, because new high end models can play HEVC directly, however other models don’t. But since it’s a supported codec for some Samaung Smart TV, it will still try to play it in direct play mode. In order for you to view HEVC you need:
  • A capable PMS server to transcode H.265 (the output in H.264 will actually be bigger than the original)
  • To Switch the playback mode on the Pre-Play screen to Transcoding, before you start the movie.

2. If your Plex is not power enough to handle HEVC/H.265 video on Samsung Smart TV, you’re perhap able to try put video to USB stick then plug the USB drive to USB port on Samsung Smart TV for streaming.

Author: Chris Gu

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