QuickTime Player incompatible with HEVC MP4 on M5 MacBook

Trying to open a video MP4 file and I get this error: "This file isn't compatible with QuickTime player".

I have an M5 Macbook MDE04LL/A running macOS version 26.5.2

This is the video codec info from FFMPEG. Everything I see online says that Quicktime should be able to play H265 (HEVC) videos if you have Apple Silicon and are running MacOS 26 or newer, which I am.

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '1.mp4':
  Metadata:
    compatible_brands: iso8isommp41dashvp09cmfc
    major_brand     : mp41
    minor_version   : 0
    creation_time   : 2025-01-07T01:31:02.000000Z
    copyright       : rl-Z790-i9-14900
    comment         : TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI
    encoder         : Lavf62.3.100
  Duration: 00:00:22.15, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 626 kb/s
  Stream #0:0[0x1](und): Video: hevc (Main) (hev1 / 0x31766568), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 1080x1920, 622 kb/s, 29.98 fps, 29.98 tbr, 19184 tbn (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2025-01-07T01:31:02.000000Z
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
      vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
      encoder         : Lavc62.11.100 libx265

Posted on Sep 19, 2026 2:08 PM

1 reply

Matti Haveri

Level 7 (22,314 points)

Sep 19, 2026 11:14 PM in response to raleighlittles

raleighlittles wrote:

hev1

macOS 27 Golden Gate and earlier QuickTime Player does not play video codecs like H.265 with Codec ID hev1.

So when encoding new movies with ffmpeg use option '-tag:v hvc1'.

Or losslessly fix old movies. Notice that ffmpeg does not properly support copying metadata so don't even try to copy metadata with ffmpeg option '-movflags use_metadata_tags -map_metadata 0' and just fix Codec ID hev1 to hvc1:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -tag:v hvc1 output.mp4

Then copy metadata from the original movie with:

exiftool -m -overwrite_original -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -tagsFromFile input.mp4 -All:All '-FileCreateDate<QuickTime:CreateDate' '-FileModifyDate<QuickTime:CreateDate' output.mp4

https://exiftool.org/

IINA and VLC should have no issues with playing any decent new or old codec.

https://iina.io

https://www.videolan.org