@gabrielesvelto So the answer is NO see screenshot.

Linux shaar 6.14.11-300.fc42.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Jun 10 16:24:16 UTC 2025 x86_64 GNU/Linux

ludovic@shaar:~$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 42 (Adams)

ludovic@shaar:~$ sudo dmidecode -t system
[sudo] Mot de passe de ludovic :
# dmidecode 3.6
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.0.0 present.

Handle 0x000C, DMI type 1, 27 bytes
System Information
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20KHCTO1WW
Version: ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th
SKU Number: LENOVO_MT_20KH_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th
Family: ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th

@gabrielesvelto My system is about 7 years old (bought in early 2018) and shows hardware decoding supported. Linux, Fedora 41, i7-8700K CPU using the CPU's onboard/integrated GPU (on a 4k HiDPI display). Hardware encoding is also listed as supported.

(I use an eccentric desktop without an X compositor, so maybe something is going on there.)

@gabrielesvelto Since my current pc does have h265 hw decoding I'd have to dig up my old pc to check.
But there are two things I can say for sure. First, on hardware that does have the hevc oem windows codec and has hw h265 decode, h265 shows up as hw decode supported but sw decode unsupported, which seems weird because I thought that windows codec also includes cpu decode in case there's no hw decode.