Ars Technica
HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops’ CPUs
HEVC licensing gets more expensive in January.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/hp-and-dell-disable-hevc-support-built-into-their-laptops-cpus/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
Nov 20, 2025 at 11:02pmArsBot 🤖
Show threadKellic Tiger Nov 20, 2025
@arstechnica #Enshittification continues all in the name of squeezing every last possible dime out of everyone so you can appease the shareholders.
Show thread宮城巴惠 Nov 20, 2025
@arstechnica and another reason why I will be replacing my h.265 videos with AV1...
Show threadMaxi 12x 💉Nov 21, 2025
@KitsuneofInari I hope you won’t transcode them, that would bring significant generation loss.
Show threadNicole ParsonsNov 20, 2025

@arstechnica

Yet another example where "Buying Isn't Owning" from HP's Department of #Enshittification.

The business models of monopolies...

Some poor account rep. or customer service agent: "Yes, I know you bought an HP laptop with this functionality, but we're taking it away after you bought it, ... for reasons"

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/19/ubisoft-says-it-out-loud-we-want-people-to-get-used-to-not-owning-what-theyve-bought/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/hp-avoids-monetary-damages-over-bricked-printers-in-class-action-settlement/

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37408173

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/hp-fails-to-derail-claims-that-it-bricks-scanners-on-multifunction-printers-when-ink-runs-low-2/

https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2024/04/22/lawsuit-says-hp-took-advantage-of-customers-sunk-costs-with-printer-updates-prohibiting-third-party-ink

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/02/home-printer-digital-rights-management-hp-instant-ink-subscription/672913/

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/06/brother_firmware_update_toner/

1/

Ubisoft Says It Out Loud: We Want People To Get Used To Not Owning What They’ve Bought

We’ve done a metric ton of posts here over the years pointing out one unfortunate trend that has come along with the move from physical products to digital purchases: you don’t own what…

Techdirt
Show threadNicole ParsonsNov 20, 2025

2/

HP believes captive consumers & Coercive Capitalism is the business model of the future.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/03/customers-fume-as-hp-blocks-third-party-ink-from-more-of-its-printers/

https://gizmodo.com/hp-printers-drm-update-block-third-party-ink-1850211997

https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/smart-office/hp-says-its-new-subscription-plan-will-make-you-hate-your-printer-less-but-will-it/

https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-changes-licensing-text-when-kindle-books-are-purchased

https://www.dailydot.com/culture/youtube-clippy-pfp/

https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2023-12-08-playstationed-tyler-james-hill-2ba28bfdbefc

https://mmos.com/news/ubisoft-revokes-the-crew-licenses

HP outrages printer users with firmware update suddenly bricking third-party ink

HP’s approach to DRM continues rubbing people the wrong way.

Ars Technica
Show threadJacquelineNov 21, 2025

@Npars01 @arstechnica

"You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society."

Show threadIanto JonesNov 21, 2025
@arstechnica HP and Dell have been competing for the bottom of the consumer computing barrel for decades. Year after year it's a game of one-upmanship to see how much more crap they can be, and this is pretty damned bad.
Show threadChris BussardNov 21, 2025

@arstechnica

I'm a bit unclear here. Are they selling new units with HEVC disabled or disabling HEVC on units they've already sold?

If the latter, what's the infection vector? Windows Update?

Show threadBryan Nov 21, 2025
@cwbussard @arstechnica
It’s existing machines already purchased…
I think the license just expires, and you have to figure out on your own that turning off hardware acceleration is how to fix it.
Show threadChris BussardNov 21, 2025

@bryan @arstechnica

Wow, that's shockingly awful. It almost feels like a parody of a Cory Dotorow novel, but real. "Doctorowesque"?...

Still not clear on the mechanism for **how** they're pulling off this bullshit. Someone one reddit says someone else on reddit says it's firmware level, talking with Windows over ACPI. Of course, as is usual for reddit, I can't find the original comment. I don't see how the driver was ruled out as a potential culprit.

It sounds like Linux is unaffected.

Show threadBryan Nov 21, 2025
@cwbussard @arstechnica
Seems like you just have a vendor installed version of the HEVC Video Extensions that expires for the length of the license or perhaps there is another license enforcement tool from vendor (in this case HP and Dell). As far as I can read there is no hardware level locking at all. Simply using VLC works because they have their own implementation that uses the hardware acceleration (this is of no help for browsers or other apps installed on windows though).

To get systemwide support you have to uninstall the expired version from vendor and buy this:
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nmzlz57r3t7?hl=en-US&gl=US

I don’t see a price but from the angry comments I think it might be 99¢? This is marked windows 10 so unknown if it works on windows 11.
HEVC Video Extensions - Download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

Play High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) videos in any video app on your Windows 10 device. These extensions are designed to take advantage of hardware capabilities on some newer devices— including those with an Intel 7th Generation Core processor and newer GPU to support 4K and Ultra HD content. For devices that don’t have hardware support for HEVC videos, software support is provided, but the playback experience might vary based on the video resolution and PC performance. These extensions also let you encode HEVC content on devices that don’t have a hardware-based video encoder.

Microsoft Store - Download apps, games & more for your Windows PC
Show threadChris BussardNov 21, 2025

@bryan @arstechnica

I believe on of the reddit comments said they bought that and it still doesn't work.

In any event, I'm going to try really hard not to burst from Linux smugness over here.

Show threadBryan Nov 21, 2025
@cwbussard @arstechnica
Heh, maybe why the rating is so poor. Also could be that extension from Microsoft is software only not using hardware acceleration so it doesn’t work for everyone?

This is one of the reasons Google has been pushing AV1 so hard. No royalties.