What is HVEC?

ben351500

Hi everyone. Curious non-techie here. I've been seeing more and more uploads using HVEC. What is HVEC? Is there an advantage to it?

Thanks for any insight!

john32123666

HVEC stands for High Efficiency Video Coding ...
also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate. It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD, and unlike the primarily 8-bit AVC, HEVC's higher fidelity Main 10 profile has been incorporated into nearly all supporting hardware.
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding

ben351500

@john32123666 Thanks mucho! I've been avoiding downloading these torrents as I had no idea what they were. But it seems there is no reason not to.

john32123666

Choosing the right video format.
ex:
Most video/audio ppayer now a days plays and support any format ...
trouble playing codec: https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/best-video-format.html

@ben351500 HEVC or H.265 codecs are only beneficial when used to encode an uncompressed video source. With H.265 it's possible to encode higher quality videos with a smaller file sizes than with AVC / H.264 for example, which is currently the most popular codec. However, the quality of the outcome is highly dependent on the skill of the person doing the encoding.
Unfortunately most of the H.265 encoded content shared on here is in fact video that has already been compressed with a different codec and then re-compressed with a H.265 codec. There is no logical reason for doing this, as the result will be a double compressed video, which may have a smaller file size, but will inevitably be of poorer quality than the original. I'm not aware of any major studio that is currently using HEVC / H.265 for its online content, so most of the HEVC / H.265 content you will find on this site is probably double-compressed and best avoided if you're looking for good quality videos.

eobox91103

@john32123666 said in What is HVEC?:

Most video/audio player now a days plays and support any format ...

Older equipment might pose an issue: I have a 2015-ish Sony "smart TV" with USB inputs. Sometimes it will play a video I've downloaded on this site, and sometimes not. I solve the problem with "Movavi Video Converter" that will convert virtually any format to any other format. I think it was about $50 US for a lifetime licence.

I have a custom setting in the software that uses codecs that I know my TV will accept. Sometimes the file size increases on conversion, which isn't a problem unless it becomes larger than 4GB which is the upper limit for a FAT32 file system. In that case, I use the same software to split the video into pieces.