H.265 / HEVC

H.265 (also known as HEVC — High Efficiency Video Coding) offers roughly 50% better compression than H.264 at the same quality, making it ideal for 4K/8K video and bandwidth-constrained delivery.

Encoding with libx265

# Basic encoding
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 28 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

# High quality
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 22 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 256k output_high_quality.mp4

# Small file
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset ultrafast -crf 32 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 96k output_small.mp4

Preset Options

From fastest to slowest:

Preset	Encoding Speed	Compression
ultrafast	Fastest	Lowest compression
superfast
veryfast
faster
fast
medium	Default
slow
slower
veryslow	Slowest	Best compression

Profile & Level

# Main profile
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 28 \
  -profile:v main output_main.mp4

# Main10 (10-bit, better quality at same bitrate)
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 26 \
  -pix_fmt yuv420p10le \
  -profile:v main10 output_main10.mp4

Tune Options

# Tune for grain
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 26 \
  -tune grain output.mp4

# Tune for low latency
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset ultrafast -crf 28 \
  -tune zerolatency output.mp4

# Tune for PSNR
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 28 \
  -tune psnr output.mp4

Hardware Encoding

# NVIDIA NVENC (HEVC)
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset p7 -cq 28 \
  -c:a aac output_nvenc_hevc.mp4

# macOS VideoToolbox
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v hevc_videotoolbox -b:v 6M \
  -c:a aac output_videotoolbox_hevc.mp4

# VAAPI
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vaapi_device /dev/dri/renderD128 \
  -vf "hwupload,scale_vaapi=w=1920:h=1080:format=nv12" \
  -c:v hevc_vaapi output_vaapi_hevc.mp4

HDR Support

# HDR10 (most common)
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 22 \
  -pix_fmt yuv420p10le \
  -x265-params "hdr10=1:max-cll=1000,400:master-display=G(8500,39850)B(6550,2250)R(35450,14675)WP(15635,16450)L(10000000,200)" \
  -c:a eac3 -b:a 384k \
  output_hdr10.mp4

# HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma)
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 22 \
  -pix_fmt yuv420p10le \
  -x265-params "hlg=1" \
  -c:a eac3 -b:a 384k \
  output_hlg.mp4

Comparison: H.264 vs H.265

Aspect	H.264	H.265
Compression	Good	~50% better
Encoding speed	Faster	Slower
Hardware support	Universal	Growing
Compatibility	Excellent	Good (modern devices)
4K+ video	Possible	Ideal
Best use	General web, mobile	4K/8K, bandwidth savings