Odd Issue - H.265 files show Media Offline

Hey Guys. Something really weird happened to me and I can't find the answer anywhere and when I called into tech support they couldn't answer the question. I have a Mavic 2 Pro drone that shoots in H.265 color. I also save as MP4 since it's a PC with Windows 10. I had resolve 15.0.0.008 (free) on my old laptop and I could always import H.265 media into the media pool with no problems. I never thought twice about it. I just purchased a new laptop, installed resolve 15.1.1.1 (free) and tried to import the same exact files into the media pool and they say "Media Offline". I called into tech support and they said the free version doesn't allow importing of H.265 files. However it always worked (and still does) with my old laptop. What is going on here?

Thanks for the help.

I would have said the same as Tech Support.

I had resolve 15.0.0.008 (free) on my old laptop and I could always import H.265 media into the media pool with no problems.

I just purchased a new laptop, installed resolve 15.1.1.1 (free) and tried to import the same exact files into the media pool and they say "Media Offline".

My guess is one of 2 things; either 15.0.0.008 had a bug causing it to work or your old laptop had a third party codec installed that allowed Resolve to successfully decode it.

I called into tech support and they said the free version doesn't allow importing of H.265 files.

Yes, it's not supposed to. This is a licensing issue.

So I think after 2 days I finally figured it out. The first thing I tried to do was uninstall my Resolve 15.1.1.1 and re-install the older version of 15.0.0.088 thinking that would help. It didn't. I then tried to just play the videos on my new computer through Windows Movie & TV and it wouldn't play the H.265 videos. So then I downloaded VLC player as I've always had good luck with that in the past. Still didn't play the videos. I then found an app in the Microsoft store called "HEVC Video Extensions", paid $.099, installed the app, then the videos starting playing through Windows Media Player. Still won't play through VLC or Movies & TV but I switch my default video player to Windows Media Player and the videos imported and played in Resolve 15.0.0.088. I don't believe I can export them in H.265 in the free version but at least I can keep my original files in that format and still work with them.