GoPro Player message HEVC Decoder Missing when open a GoPro Max .360 file.

After installing GoPro Player on an old desktop computer I decided to installed the GoPro Player on a newer (about 5 years old) notebook. The notebook has an i7 processor and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 950m graphics card.

However when running GoPro Player and opening a .360 file from a GoPro Max the following message appeared.

"HEVC Decoder Missing. Your computer is missing HEVC hardware decoder to read this file. These typically are provided by your computer manufacturer, please contact them to redeem or download the HEVC decoder otherwise you can purchase it from Microsoft Store directly.

The price of the Microsoft HEVC decoder from the Microsoft Store was $1.45 and as it turns out, can be used on up to 10 computers. The real question in my mind is would it work.

You would think purchasing and installing the app would be quite straight forward but after purchasing the app, downloading it and it saying it installed, it hadn't. I needed to go back into the Microsoft Store and install the app.

The good thing is the GoPro Player can now at least open the .360 file produced by the GoPro Max, but it can't player the video. Whilst the HEVC app is close to useless in terms of playing the video, at least I was able to check each .360 file at the start and the end. Sometimes I could move to different parts of the video, but if I tried to play the video the image would stall and the sound would continue.

Whilst you can't play the video using GoPro Player, you can still use the export options which in my case is to create a 4K, mp4 file. You can also use the reframe option to export a HD video.

I also found that you can view the .360 file using Windows Media Player and whilst it isn't displayed correctly, you can at least see the video.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au