When we finish editing our issues in our editing software, the first hurdle we face (due to lack of hard disk space …) is often the format in which we decided to export our video. Digital or physical. We are faced with a list of video codec names that are sometimes difficult to enter. And which many amateur cameramen are also afraid of.
Which internet user has never searched for a codec or codec package to play a video. And if not, at best you only heard the sound … As I wrote in another article, the video codec mainly depends on the medium in which your video is broadcast. In fact, it is not as simple as the photo, which is often enough to export in jpeg or other format so it can be seen everywhere. Video has this major drawback, which is choosing the right codec based on the streaming platform.
The concept of containers and codecs.
To illustrate what a container and a codec are, imagine a jar (the container) that contains letters (the codec). The video player that will “decode” this file can be compared to a person who has the key to the pot. And who will put the letters together to make words and then make meaningful sentences? In fact, the container is the file that can be related to a box or jar where the video codec, audio codec and sometimes even the subtitle file are found. If you have a video in .avi or .mp4 or .mov or even .mkv, the container will end after the period. What videographers also call ‘video format’.
For example, for .mp4, the container is MP4. So far so good. And so in this container there can be Mpeg4, H264 or x264 which are video codecs.
Accompanied by the audio track which can be in mp3, AC3 or AAC, but we’ll return to the audio codecs in another article. And since we don’t like doing things in the video, these video codecs can also be found in other containers …
Yes, otherwise it would be too easy.
So the biggest concern in the video is this famous lack of compatibility that ALL multimedia platforms have. Play a video file if no codec package is installed yet. In fact, every codec has affinity with this or that manufacturer (Windows, Apple, etc.).
About H265 (HEVC)
Let’s be clear, this is tomorrow’s codec, which will replace the H264 very soon. Why ? One is made for UHD (4K) but also for 8K (Super Ultra HD?). It also supports HDR, which the H264 does not. And two because it offers a more optimized encryption algorithm than H264. This allows you to deliver as beautiful, if not more beautiful and more detailed, H264 image quality to a file with almost the same bit rate … but with two obvious advantages: size and quality!
Example: for a 2 hour movie in Full HD encoded with 6 Mbs in H264, you get a file of about 8-9 GB, while with the H265 codec you are at a lower bit rate (for example 5 Mbs) a file of 5 GB with the same image quality or even better! A bit rate of 10 Mbs in H265 is enough to get high quality 4K video. You will understand that the algorithm is completely different from H264. It allows streaming services to deliver 4K content without needing too much bandwidth.
But all this comes at a price …
The disadvantage of H.265 is that it consumes a lot of resources when encoding. You need a very good computer configuration to edit or export with this codec. The algorithm requires a lot of processor resources.
Another detail, it is compatible with YouTube. That was not the case before.
