
What is H.265 and why is it better than H.264?

Known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HVEC) and MPEG-H Part 2, H.265 is a video compression standard designed for the latest generations of high definition video. It is the successor to the widely used H.264 codec (also called AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10) and offers some significant improvements over the current compression scheme. H.265 was developed by the Joint Video Coding Collective Group (JCT-VC), a group of video encoding experts that began work on the compression standard in 2010.

The H.265 codec offers some significant improvements over the H.264 codec, which was first developed in the cloudy days of 2003. There are so many improvements to consider, but here are the highlights for consumers.
Better compression
H.265 offers significantly improved compression over H.264. The new codec can do almost twice the compression of its predecessor. With H.265, video with the same visual quality would only take up half the memory. Alternatively, videos with the same file size and bitrate can be significantly better. Part of this improvement comes from increasing the size of the macroblock. H.264 only allows 16 x 16 pixel macroblocks, which are too small to be really effective in higher resolution video. H.265 provides 64 x 64 pixel macroblocks (now called Coding Tree Units, or CTUs) to improve encoding efficiency at all resolutions.
Improved intraframe motion prediction
Video compression is based on predicting movement between frames. When there are no changes to a pixel, a video codec can save space by referencing it instead of playing it. Therefore, improved motion prediction means improved file size and compression quality. Along with the improved compression standards in H.265, we also found significant improvements in motion prediction and compensation.
Improved intra-frame prediction
Video compression also benefits from individual frame “motion” analysis, allowing you to compress individual video frames more efficiently. This can be achieved by describing the pixels with a mathematical function instead of the actual values of the pixels. The function takes up less space than pixel data, which reduces file size. However, the codec must support a sufficiently advanced mathematical function for this method to be really useful. The H.265 intra-prediction function is much more detailed than H.264, it allows 33 directions of movement in nine directions of H.264.
Parallel processing
H.265 uses tiles and fragments that can be decoded independently of the rest of the frame. This means that the decoding process can be divided into multiple parallel streaming processes using more efficient decoding capabilities in modern multi-core processors. At higher video resolutions, this improved efficiency is necessary for decoding tempo-controlled video on lower hardware.
Larger maximum frame size
The world is getting higher resolution and H.265 supports it. With H.265, video can be encoded up to 8K UHD or 8192 pixels × 4320 pixels. Currently, only a few cameras can produce 8K video and very few monitors can display this resolution. But just as HD is the current standard, we can expect 4K and ultimately 8K to get the same level of attention.
Hardware support
The H.265 codec is specifically supported by the current generation of Intel processors. The Kaby Lake line of processors contains dedicated instruction sets for encoding and decoding H.265 video, as for future generations. This gives the codec many speed and consistency benefits over other high definition video codecs. Given the popularity and technical superiority of the H.264 codec, it’s not surprising that Intel prefers to ditch its hardware. Of course, this doesn’t limit the use of H.265 to Kaby Lake processors, but it does mean that computers using Kaby Lake chips will be more flexible for playing H.265 video. And considering that the computational overhead required to encode and decode high-definition H.265 video is quite significant,
Conclusion: where to find H.265?
H.265 is still less common than H.264, but it is rapidly gaining ground in the market. Apple’s new iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 11, saves all video files in H.265. The next-generation MacBook Pro includes hardware support for Kaby Lake for codec decoding.








