---
title: 'AV1 vs H.265 HEVC for storage?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=G-a7TANSpBo'
video_id: 'G-a7TANSpBo'
date: 2026-06-19
duration_sec: 0
---

# AV1 vs H.265 HEVC for storage?

> Source: [AV1 vs H.265 HEVC for storage?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=G-a7TANSpBo)

## Summary

This video explores the choice between AV1 and H.265 (HEVC) codecs for reducing storage used by personal 4K video files. The creator tests both codecs using HandBrake on CPU, measuring encoding speed and final file size. The conclusion favors H.265 for its similar compression efficiency and faster encoding.

### Key Points

- **AV1** [0:46] — Open-source, royalty-free codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media.
- **H.265 (HEVC)** [1:17] — Popular modern codec but not royalty-free; has a complicated and expensive royalty structure.
- **Test Setup** [3:06] — Uses three source files from GoPro Hero 9, Panasonic GH5, and Panasonic G7, all 4K h.264. Encodes with HandBrake at 15 Mbps, CPU only.
- **H.265 Encoding Results** [3:50] — Encoding speed 0.028 FPS, final file size 120 MB (from 800 MB source).
- **AV1 Encoding Results** [4:08] — Encoding speed 0.017 FPS, final file size 122 MB (similar to H.265).
- **Playback and Quality Comparison** [4:27] — Both yielded similar file size reduction; creator could not see quality difference. AV1 was more CPU-intensive during playback.
- **Final Decision** [5:21] — Creator will likely choose H.265 due to faster encoding and sufficiently good compression.

### Conclusion

For personal 4K video storage where re-encoding is acceptable, H.265 offers comparable compression to AV1 with significantly faster CPU-based encoding, making it a practical choice.

## Transcript

there has been a lot of Buzz lately
about av1 an open source and
royalty-free video Codec developed by
the alliance for open media a non-profit
industry Consortium in the same time my
storage server is almost full at 80
occupied capacity much of that has been
taken up by 4K videos from recent years
so I'm currently thinking about how I
can reduce this space the videos are
Random clips from here and there travel
and family memories for example they are
not intended for future editing so I can
reduce their quality and size with a
modern codec but which codec at the
moment the two most popular codecs are
av-1 and h.265 let's talk a little bit
about them
av1 or AO media video 1 was developed as
a successor to vp9 a coding format
developed by Google the founders of
Alliance for open media are Amazon Cisco
Google Intel Microsoft Mozilla Netflix
The Alliance saw expansion of its member
list since Inception in 2015. AMD arm
Nvidia Adobe Facebook Apple Samsung
Huawei Intel and others joined in the
following years
h.265 or MPEG H part 2 or hevc or high
efficiency video coding is another
modern and popular video Codec it is
developed by joint collaborative team on
video coding and was first made
available in 2013. the majority of
active patent contributions towards the
development of the h.265 format came
from five organizations Samsung General
Electric M and K Holdings NTT and JVC
Kenwood the concept for h.265 was
largely an extension of h.264 but
introduces numerous improvements during
the encoding process the big difference
compared to av1 is that h.265 is not
royalty free it has a very complicated
and expensive royalty structure The
Joint shareholders from MPEG La hevc
advance and valus media which including
Ericsson Panasonic Qualcomm sharp and
Sony all have different license fees on
h.265
foreign
them and will not edit them in the
future the videos are basically from
three cameras GoPro Hero 9 Panasonic gh5
and Panasonic G7 all the footage from
them is
2160p 4K resolution with different bit
rates all the original footage is
encoded in h.264 the predecessor of
h.265
I've been reading for the last few days
about which codec to choose but I can't
come to a decision all the hype now is
about av1 but this does not guarantee
that it is the better choice
h.265 is older and more developed av1
promises that it's the codec of the
future
I decided to conduct a test using three
source files one from each camera for
software I am using handbrake free and
open source converting tool for encoding
I am using CPU only Hardware encoding
trades quality for Speed I'm not in a
hurry more info about Hardware encoders
can be found at eposvox video
there are a lot of settings for each
encoder I haven't delved into them too
much for Quality I sat a bit rate of 15
megabits per second the source file in
this example is from the GoPro camera
with original bit rate of 100 megabits
and 800 megabytes file size let's start
with h.265 using x265 encoder the
encoder preset was on default slower
speed means better quality in theory the
other settings can be seen on the
screenshot on my quad-core AMD Zen 2 CPU
the encoding speed is 002.8 frames per
second and the final file size is 120
megabytes with av1 codec the encoder
preset is at six the encoding speed is
slower at 0 0 1.7 FPS and the final file
size is 122 megabytes or about the same
size as h.265
in both cases it makes a big difference
in file size compared to the original
Source but what about playback although
it's not important to me I decided to
check which codec is more CPU intensive
during playback av1 puts more strain on
the CPU but that's probably to be
expected it's important to note that I
am not sure does my hardware and
software have a GPU decoding during
playback in terms of quality I can't see
a differences between the two encoded
files but I am not pixel peering
another thing I wonder is if and how
much the original file matters if the
source files are encoded with h.264
maybe h.265 is the better choice to
re-encode because probably h.265 is more
similar to h.264 than av1 to h265
. in the end I'll probably go with the
h.265 it's interesting to note that a
successor to the h.265 has been in
development for some time the name is
h.266 or versatile video coding or VVC
of course it promises better compression
but at the moment it's not available in
handbrake
ax-266 encoder is expected to be
publicly released in second half of 2023
but it will take time to be perfected
foreign