# Video quality comparison.



## cute.bandar (Nov 30, 2019)

Always heard about importance of bit rate. Never bothered, because shit internet connections didn't allow. Its Last day of month and I have GBs to spare. Compared various rips of ...
Result:
*i.imgur.com/XAQPdo0.png

Left: ....2019.1080p.HC.HDRip.X264-EVO[EtHD] ==  4GB
Center: ... [1080p x265 HEVC 10bit BD AAC 7.1] [Prof] == 5.8 GB
Right: ...1080p.READNFO.X264.AC3-EVO[EtHD] == 2.4GB
Bottom Left: ...2019.1080P.BDRip  == 2.2GB

As can be seen the x265 rip is way wayy better. Note how smooth the sky is. In all of the rest, the sky is pixelated.
x265 has double the compression of x264. So a 5Gb x265 is like 9GB x264 ?
I do not understand why the results are the way they are. x265 rip has a lower bitrate. I guess it depends on encoder and source..
Either way it seems a x265 720P may be better than a x264 1080p
Edit: google suggests an x265 requires half bitrate for same quality as x264


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## Zangetsu (Dec 1, 2019)

Hey buddy, just remove the group encoder names from the file names. we don't want to promote piracy here.

And yes x265 is always better then x264. Now a days I search for x265 movies only instead of x264 (may be I am liking the format so much  )
The only downside is it takes more processing power to decode so, portable devices will be looking for chargers sooner with x265


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## whitestar_999 (Dec 1, 2019)

cute.bandar said:


> I do not understand why the results are the way they are. Better rips have lower bitrates. I guess it depends on encoder and source..
> Either way it seems a x265 720P may be better than a x264 1080p


x265 has better compression but it is not as as exaggerated as 5gb=9gb. Basically as long as you stick to "good x264" videos then size difference compared to x265 won't be that much.e.g.for this same "video" my choice would have been 8.76gb 1080p release.Try that to compare with x265 release as rule of thumb is to always compare a bigger size x264 to a smaller size x265.


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## Zangetsu (Dec 1, 2019)

for 1080p resolution both will be same in output and you won't notice a difference, though x265 will take less storage space.
The difference is noticeable when UHD or 4K content is compared.

just compare the UHD versions of x264 & x265 and post it here


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## whitestar_999 (Dec 1, 2019)

Zangetsu said:


> for 1080p resolution both will be same in output and you won't notice a difference, though x265 will take less storage space.
> The difference is noticeable when UHD or 4K content is compared.
> 
> just compare the UHD versions of x264 & x265 and post it here


First of all,as it has already been shown above,output quality depends on both encoding settings & source so one cannot make universal statements like "both will be same in output for 1080p".

Second,to notice differences in 4k one needs 4k monitor/tv.Playing 4k videos on 2k/HD screen will result in down-scaling which will make any comparison invalid.


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## Zangetsu (Dec 1, 2019)

^Obviously the source and encoding settings are important factors to consider but using x265 for 1080p resolution format is not a big deal to go for.
And you should not add your assumption from other users comments, what I said was not Universal statement.

@cute.bandar : Have a read on this article where the author has done detailed analysis of both formats.
A quality comparison between x264 (H.264/AVC) and x265 (H.265/HEVC) with animated content at pretty demanding settings – The GAT at XIN.at

HEVC is specially beneficial for Broadcasting videos such as Netflix, Prime etc where it saves lot of bandwidth and allows a better viewing experience with less buffering.
Another good codec to compare with x265 is VP9 codec from Google which is used in Youtube uploads.

To summarize: if the original source is x264 format with High bitrate and one wants to save space then x265 is the best format to use. 

*Pros of x265:* Upto 50% more compressed size than original at lower bitrate.
*Cons: *Small video degradation than original.


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## whitestar_999 (Dec 1, 2019)

^^A universal statement is something which is made without stating any condition.You should have worded your statement a bit differently then.

Animated content is entirely different from live content so any conclusion based on this is not necessarily true for all live content. I think that you are getting it wrong,my point here is that at 1080p as long as x264 is good encode then x265 can match it with may be ~20% size reduction but if you say that a 4gb x265 1080p release can match quality of a 8gb x264 release then I say very difficult to achieve(which seems to be the @op's conclusion).

P.S. btw good comparison article,anime community has adopted x265 years ago as encoders there always strive to keep improving quality while also keeping file size in mind.


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## Zangetsu (Dec 1, 2019)

cute.bandar said:


> As can be seen the x265 rip is way wayy better. Note how smooth the sky is. In all of the rest, the sky is pixelated.


The Sky is static frame which is not moving and x264 is lame here, x265 is better to optimize it while compressing thats why (refer the article posted)



cute.bandar said:


> x265 has double the compression of x264. So a 5Gb x265 is like 9GB x264 ?


Yes, half the file size and identical quality in x265.



cute.bandar said:


> I do not understand why the results are the way they are. Better rips have lower bitrates. I guess it depends on encoder and source..
> Either way it seems a x265 720P may be better than a x264 1080p


Correct. Settings and Source. But not necessary a x265 720p will be better than 1080p

_In August 2016, Netflix published a comparison of x264, VP9, and x265 using video clips from 500 movies and TV shows using 6 different quality metrics and found that both *VP9 and x265 have 40%–50% better quality at 1080p than x264*. Netflix stated that with the *VMAF metric (which closely mirrors human visual experience according to the author) x265 performed substantially (19% to 22%) better than VP9*. (Wikipedia)_


Yes Animated content is different than the live content.
Obviously if the file is compressed with x265 codec and lower bit-rate the quality is not equal to the original source (be it x264 or some other codec).

The only point here is the encoder community praising the x265 with achieving the near to original quality of the source.
_If OP has to upload a video lets say 30GB (1080p) on internet and if x265 is making it down to say ~12GB then obviously OP will prefer the x265 as he is getting near to original quality._
For the same reason Anime up-loaders are using x265 formats to upload (to save space and time) but maintaining the quality which viewers expect.

Now, what I was trying to say is the real power of x265 is displayed when we move to 4K formats there x265 easily beats the x264 format.

If you want to understand the nitty-gritty then read through this excellent article on x265 on 4K.

*www.howtogeek.com/342416/what-is-hevc-h.265-video-and-why-is-it-so-important-for-4k-movies/

After watching the youtube video posted there you will understand why x265 is more important for a 4K format and makes little difference in 1080p.

The reason x265 outperforms x264 is due to the change in its algorithm which is explained in above article.

_"HEVC can compress videos twice as much as AVC at the same quality level. 
This is particularly important for 4K video, which takes up a huge amount of space with AVC"_


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## meetdilip (Dec 2, 2019)

Say I have a x264 mkv file with me. Can I use Handbrake to convert it to x265 ? Will it have the same quality ?


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## whitestar_999 (Dec 2, 2019)

meetdilip said:


> Say I have a x264 mkv file with me. Can I use Handbrake to convert it to x265 ? Will it have the same quality ?


Probably not.Above applies for compression from a good quality source so if you a full iso image of a bluray then compressing it to x265 is better than x264 but what you are trying to do is compress an already compressed x264.


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## Zangetsu (Dec 2, 2019)

meetdilip said:


> Say I have a x264 mkv file with me. Can I use Handbrake to convert it to x265 ? Will it have the same quality ?


the Quality won't be equal but you won't be able to make out the difference. only use x265 when u have bandwidth constraint and storage issue.


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## meetdilip (Dec 2, 2019)

Zangetsu said:


> . only use x265 when u have bandwidth constraint and storage issue.



I asked out of academic interest. But if it helps manage storage space better, that is useful for me.


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## Vyom (Dec 4, 2019)

Excellent thread. Nice discussions.
Recently I used handbrake to convert few marriage videos, originally in x264 codec, to HEVC x265, and while I couldn't see any major difference in quality, it helped me reduce the size of files to less than half the size.
Now I have video of roughly 2 hrs in about 5 GB, which considering that the fps is 50, I think is great!

Coming back to the OP's conclusion: "x265 720P may be better than a x264 1080p".
I would take it as a pinch of salt. It theory, that just can't be true. Number of pixels in 1080p (20,73,600) is more than twice then the number of pixels in 720p (9,21,600).
So looking on a fHD native screen, and up closely, the 720p one would loose some details.


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## cute.bandar (Dec 4, 2019)

> Coming back to the OP's conclusion: "x265 720P may be better than a x264 1080p".


I should have worded that properly   It was supposed to be a question, comparing low bitrate 1080p with a good 720p x265


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## whitestar_999 (Dec 4, 2019)

cute.bandar said:


> I should have worded that properly   It was supposed to be a question, comparing low bitrate 1080p with a good 720p x265


That is universally true,a good 4gb 720p x264 will look better than a 2gb 1080p video clip.


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