HEVC vs H.264
Also known as: h265 vs h264, hevc vs avc size
H.264 (AVC) and HEVC (H.265) are video compression standards. HEVC is the newer one and typically reaches the same visual quality at roughly half the bitrate of H.264, so HEVC photos and videos take noticeably less storage at equal quality. The tradeoff is heavier processing and narrower compatibility.
- HEVC (H.265) was finalized in 2013 as the successor to H.264 (AVC) from 2003.
- HEVC typically matches H.264 quality at about half the bitrate and file size.
- H.264 has broader device and browser compatibility than HEVC.
What they are
H.264, also called AVC (Advanced Video Coding), is a widely supported codec finalized in 2003 and is the most universally compatible video format. HEVC, also called H.265 (High Efficiency Video Coding), was finalized in 2013 as its successor.
HEVC uses larger, more flexible coding blocks and more advanced prediction than H.264. This lets it describe the same picture with fewer bits, at the cost of more computation to encode and decode. On Apple devices HEVC also backs the HEIC photo format.
Storage impact
At matched quality, HEVC commonly needs about half the bitrate of H.264, so an HEVC clip can be roughly half the file size of the equivalent H.264 clip. This is why switching a camera to HEVC, often labeled High Efficiency, shrinks new recordings.
The catch is compatibility: older devices, browsers, and apps may not decode HEVC, so H.264 remains the safe choice for sharing. For freeing space, re-encoding large H.264 videos to HEVC can reclaim significant storage while keeping similar visual quality.