Most online videos use the H.264 video codec. My old WD TV media player box supports H.264 (MPEG-4) codec and I had no reason to convert the downloaded videos when I added them to my offline video library. My new TV supports H.265 codec and switching to this new codec would result in significant space savings.
In the middle of this conversion, I began to wonder if the H.266 (a codec I knew existed) would be more future proof and compressing. Well, the published literature says that H.266 is more compressive than H.265.
There is a competing codec called AV1, which competes with H.266. It is favoured by browser makers as it is not encumbered by software patents. So, which one is better?
I re-compiled FFmpeg today to add the libvvenc encoder and my test showed no improvement by H.266 over H.265. In fact, H.266 performed worse with my test file. AV1 codec provided by FFmpeg project also did not perform well and was in the same league as H.266.
Here is my judgement:
- H.264 — destined to rule the Web for some more time as it has the widest compatibility with TVs, phones, media player boxes and AV devices.
- H.265 — will not take over the Web like H.264. Currently, it is supported by most new TVs, camera and phones.
- AV1 — destined to take over the Web, TVs, phones and AV devices.
- H.266 — will continue to languish as there is no clarity among patent holder groups. My new TV does not support this format and most new TVs in the near future will not either.
My TV plays AV1 files fine so my future offline video downloads will not need any conversion. AV1's compression ability is comparable to that of H.265.
I will however convert all my old video files from H.264 to H.265 as the space savings are significant. (I will not convert them to AV1 as I do not play them in a browser. I do not use smart phones so I do care even if these devices do not support H.265.)
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