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lisamelton / video_transcoding

Tools to transcode, inspect and convert videos.
MIT License
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Recommended bitrate / options for x265/HEVC? #216

Closed jdelman closed 6 years ago

jdelman commented 6 years ago

I recently encoded a 1080p Blu-ray using the --handbrake-option encoder=x265 option. It produced an MKV that was the same exact file size as when I had run it earlier without that option. It's my understanding that you can use a much lower bitrate with x265 but achieve similar results.

What is a good target bitrate for x265 that would match the visual quality of iTunes? What arguments should I pass to video-transcoding?

Thanks!

lisamelton commented 6 years ago

@jdelman Yes, the output file size would be roughly the same no matter whether you use x264 or x265. That's because the target bitrate does not change. However, in most situations, quality will improve when using x265 at the same bitrate as x264.

To reduce the bitrate, try adding --target small to your command line.

I don't think I've done sufficient testing to provide guidance on options to match the visual quality of iTunes when using x265. That's an "eye of the beholder" kind of thing anyway. :) And, for me, x265 is still too slow to be practical for home transcoding.

I hope that helps.

lisamelton commented 6 years ago

@jdelman I'll close this now, but feel free to continue commenting here or open a new issue.