Is Hevc Better Than 1080p

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Alacoque Whitchurch

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Aug 3, 2024, 2:29:28 PM8/3/24

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Recent technology known as H.265 (also called HEVC, or High Efficiency Video Coding) has emerged to combat this issue. In this guide, we compare H.265 to its predecessor, H.264, and explore what H.265 means for your live broadcasts.

H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC) are both standards for video compression used in recording and distributing digital video. Why would you choose one over the other? The main difference between H.264 and H.265 is how each processes information and the resulting video file size and bandwidth consumption used with each standard.

It works by processing frames of video using a block-oriented, motion-compensation-based video compression standard. Those units are called macroblocks. Macroblocks typically consist of 16x16 pixel samples that can be subdivided into transform blocks, and may be further subdivided into what are known as prediction blocks. See the example below.

H.265 is newer and more advanced than H.264 in several ways. H.265 (also called HEVC, or High Efficiency Video Coding) allows for further reduced file size, and therefore reduced required bandwidth, of your live video streams.

In addition to the larger CTU sizes, HEVC also has better motion compensation and spatial prediction than AVC does. This means that HEVC requires more advanced hardware, like the Spark or Pro, to be able to compress the data. Fortunately, however, it also means that viewers with H.265 compatible devices will require less bandwidth and processing power to decompress that data and watch a high-quality stream.

Now more than ever, consumers rely on video content to deliver concise, accurate information. A well-produced video can be more informative and engaging than a document or brochure, and take less time to consume.

H.265's high efficiency codec allows users to broadcast in the lauded 4K resolution, the current gold standard for the industry. A sharper image will help your video content stand out from the competition and convey a polished, tech-savvy image of your church or organization to your audience.

Because H.265 compresses your data so much more efficiently, using it as your video compression tool will drop your bandwidth and storage requirements by roughly 50%. The table below compares the recommended bandwidth for H.264 vs. H.265 encoding.

BoxCast follows movement in the industry closely and constantly strives to be at the forefront of any changes. With the Spark and Pro, we allow broadcasters to incorporate HEVC compression. This enables your audience to enjoy your broadcast in the highest quality with minimal lagging or buffering. Staying true to our belief that every event that is watched live should be streamed live, we make this affordable to our customers.

If your encoder can stream in H.265, we recommend streaming with that. A third-party service like YouTube may transcode or process your video data differently from time to time depending on a variety factors, so streaming at the highest quality you can achieve on your own is always a safe bet.

I'm updating a bunch of my videos and I'm trying to figure out if I should use HEVC or x265. The HEVC files are 2-3x the size of the x265 so while that is something to keep in mind, it is not a critical factor in the decision. My biggest factors are what is easiest to play and to transcode (4k to 1080p) for other devices. Non 4k devices are some phones, and a bunch of Amazon Firesticks on 1080p Non-HDR TVs.

I can say that 1080p HEVC will need to be transcoded for some new 1080p devices. I'm unsure about Firesticks, but some new Roku TVs that are 1080p won't support HEVC. I assume they saved $$ on the HEVC license since it's not 4k anyway.

What devices are you having to transcode on? Most of my library is HEVC and 10bit color and I never have to transcode anything.....which was by design. Firesticks are the best at compatibility and play everything I throw at them. The main devices I use in home are Firesticks, Sony Google TVs, LG 4K TVs and Android phones. Outside of the house I have friends using Samsung TVs and Toshiba Fire TVs....all require no transcoding. If ROKU devices aren't consistent with HEVC playback I would avoid them unless you have one.

I did EXTENSINVE testing a couple of years ago struggling with this. I still have a rather large library of H.264 content but I have replaced or will replace it with H.265 when I can and if I can't I'll convert the H.264 content to H.265. I'm very picky about quality and I prefer H.265. It took me over a year to fine tune my settings to get what I want so I stacked up a lot of hard drives with recorded TV movies because I wasn't going to use H.264 anymore.

Depending upon the source quality (higher quality sources compress farther in the encoding process) H.265 is on average 40-50% smaller in size at the same quality. With my settings I think H.265 is the quality winner anyway so the smaller file size is a huge bonus. Most of my content is recorded movies from sources like TCM, Encore, Sony, MGM and sometimes TV movies and once encoded with H.265 I can get about 3K movies on a 4TB hard drive.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but have you shared the settings you like anywhere you could link? Or maybe make a thread for sharing settings? I'd like to encode shows to 1080p HEVC, or alternately get an arc A380 and encode to AV1. I know with AV1 I'd be doing more transcoding but if that runs on the ARC card, transcoding AV1 to H264 might not be so bad.

There are no 'settings' - it all depends on so many variables that it's impossible to even give guidance on this. There is a wealth of info out there - but my honest advice is to try play and see if you are happy with the quality vs filesize vs time taken to do it. Pretty much every file is going to be different - so don't assume what works for one movie, works the same for the next. Tv series / seasons are 'generally' encoded the same, so you can apply those settings to all episodes for example.

On AV1, unless the majority of your clients have AV1 decode, then you'll be encoding twice, one for the encode (and even on hardware, this takes a lot longer than even hevc) and again to decode during a transcode (losing the quality you fought so hard to maintain..). The space saving over AV1 is from what I can see 'minimal' vs well encoded hevc - so not worth it imo - not yet anyway.

I don't want to hijack, as I said, but they did share the ffmpeg settings (variables) for encoding shows with NVENC to 10-bit HEVC 1080p with some instructions for different sources (TV or Blu-Ray). When people go down the rabbit hole of finding a good starting point they like for encodes, I'm always interested in where they land. I'm not so arrogant to assume my perception of encode quality is better than theirs.

Anyway, my logic for AV1 vs HEVC isn't file size or quality, its that HEVC doesn't play in a browser without transcoding and I still see 1080p devices that don't support it and need transcodes. Roku Ultra and their 4k streaming stick play AV1 now. Since 1080p Roku TVs don't play HEVC I assume it's to save on the license. With that in mind it seems like as AV1 gains hardware decode support in more ARM chips, even the cheapest Roku 1080p TVs will be able to decode it without paying for it. So neither codec will direct play on every platform now, but AV1 is on the way in and HEVC still transcodes on brand new devices and in browsers after all these years.

Browsers yes. Edge has a free HEVC Plugin which allows direct play of HEVC, but agree Chrome/Firefox etc don't have this out the box - as you say, licenses are the only obvious reason why. All other hardware in the last 5 years or so that supports 'UHD/4K' will play hevc - it has to as that is the universally accepted codec for 4k video. AV1 hardware support is only in the last 2 years, maybe less.

I *think* ultimately, AV1 will gain popularity quickly once mainstream GPU's become affordable and Intel and AMD include hardware ENCODERS in their silicon. h266 is also out there - just to stir things up haha.

As an aside: to my eyes, when AV1 is starved of bits (say by an unexpectedly complex bit of video in a space-sensitive encode), it degrades more gracefully than HEVC. Of course, this may have been a chance artefact in the examples I have noticed.

I can answer your first question. At the same bitrate and transcoding from an 8-bit source 10-bit HEVC is better than 8-bit HEVC, because it hardcodes dither. archived version of am still unsure, whether that makes 12-bit HEVC transcodes superior to 10-bit, thats why I ended up here.