[0:00] h.264 or h.265 which codec should you
[0:04] use for rendering your videos for
[0:06] YouTube to answer this question in
[0:08] today's video we are going to look at
[0:10] the difference in render times and we're
[0:12] also going to look at the actual visual
[0:14] quality of the final product on YouTube
[0:17] when rendered either in h.264 or h.265
[0:21] now the outcome of this analysis might
[0:24] actually surprise you quite a bit
[0:25] because even though h.265 or hevc is
[0:30] definitely the superior codec that
[0:32] produces the same visual quality with a
[0:34] smaller file size this doesn't always
[0:37] translate into the best possible quality
[0:39] on YouTube because this highly depends
[0:42] on the resolution that you're rendering
[0:43] in now before diving right into results
[0:45] for today's video I want to mention that
[0:48] all of the tests I have performed using
[0:49] DaVinci Resolve the free version as
[0:52] since version 17 something something
[0:55] DaVinci Resolve supports rendering using
[0:57] h.265 moreover the I'm using for these
[1:01] tests comes from Modern Warfare version
[1:03] 2 so I've used gaming footage at 60fps
[1:05] however the results that I'm showing in
[1:07] this video should hopefully also be
[1:09] applicable for other type of footage
[1:10] such as Talking Heads GoPro or Drone
[1:13] footage and with having said that let's
[1:16] start with our render times now
[1:18] generally speaking you would expect the
[1:20] render times to actually decrease when
[1:22] going from h.264 to h.265 now while this
[1:26] is generally true for most people it
[1:28] also sort of depends on the type of
[1:30] Hardware that you're using to render
[1:32] your videos you see when you render
[1:34] using h.264 you will use 100 of your CPU
[1:39] or rather all of your threads that you
[1:41] have available to render that video that
[1:43] also translates into extremely high
[1:45] temperatures when for instance you have
[1:47] a 3900k on the other hand if you render
[1:50] using h.265 then most of this work is
[1:54] actually done on the GPU and therefore
[1:56] your CPU isn't really doing too much but
[1:59] then again if you have a beastly CPU
[2:01] like the 3900k with 32 threads then
[2:04] going from that to rendering on your GPU
[2:07] isn't actually going to provide you with
[2:09] much of an improvement in render speeds
[2:12] so for my system you can see the render
[2:14] times that I'm getting for a sample one
[2:16] minute clip without any edits or any
[2:18] overlays or any effects on this graph
[2:21] right now now for this video I'm going
[2:23] to be using these three different
[2:24] resolutions that you see here 1080P
[2:27] 1440p and 2160p or 4K the orange bars on
[2:32] this Plot show the render times for a
[2:35] one minute sample clip of each of these
[2:37] resolutions in h.264 whereas the blue
[2:39] bars represent the same clip but
[2:42] rendered at age 265 as you can see in
[2:45] this very idealized case I actually do
[2:47] get Improvement in render speeds when
[2:49] moving from h264 to h.265 however as I
[2:53] mentioned before this is a very
[2:54] idealized case as there are no cuts no
[2:57] overlays no text no effect Supply to the
[3:00] clips whatsoever and therefore I also
[3:03] like to talk about what I'm seeing when
[3:05] actually rendering a proper clip out and
[3:08] here results are a little bit varied as
[3:10] you can see rendering this project here
[3:12] took roughly 30 seconds longer using
[3:15] h.265 compared to h.264 then again I
[3:18] should definitely mention at this point
[3:20] that these results are highly sensitive
[3:22] to the type of harder that they're using
[3:24] and more specifically they're going to
[3:27] be hugely different if you have a CPU
[3:29] that has much less threads compared to
[3:31] the 3900k for example when I repeat the
[3:35] exact same test on my 7700k you can see
[3:38] that I'm gaining roughly 60 to 70 speed
[3:41] improvements by going from h.264 to
[3:44] h.265
[3:45] by the way natively it's not possible to
[3:48] play back hevc videos in Windows a
[3:51] workaround is to Simply use the VLC
[3:53] Media planner which then allows you to
[3:55] actually play back your hevc video clips
[3:58] however if you're using DaVinci Resolve
[4:00] to edit your videos you are likely still
[4:02] not going to be able to play back your
[4:04] videos as you will get this media
[4:05] offline warning so to fix this go to the
[4:08] Microsoft store search for the hevc
[4:11] video extension pay the one dollar that
[4:14] this costs and install the extension
[4:16] after which you'll see that the video
[4:18] will play back just fine in DaVinci
[4:19] Resolve now if so far you've found any
[4:22] value whatsoever from this video then I
[4:25] would highly appreciate it if you guys
[4:26] could smash that like And subscribe to
[4:28] the channel currently only five and a
[4:30] half percent of people that are watching
[4:32] my content are also subscribed so if
[4:35] you're enjoying these super deep dive
[4:36] videos where I'm showing actual data to
[4:38] prove a point then please consider
[4:40] subscribing it would mean the absolute
[4:42] world to me if you could grow this
[4:44] community even further
[4:45] but let's shift gears now and talk about
[4:48] the actual visual quality of the video
[4:50] after you've uploaded it to YouTube so
[4:53] for this I have performed a bunch of
[4:55] different render tests using h.264 and
[4:58] h.265 at various different resolutions
[5:00] and various different bit rates I
[5:03] uploaded all of these videos onto
[5:05] YouTube then re-downloaded them and
[5:07] analyze them using vmaf or video
[5:10] multi-method assessment Fusion which
[5:12] kind of combines different quality
[5:15] metrics into just one number and it's a
[5:18] very nice and convenient way to compare
[5:20] the quality of two different video
[5:22] sources
[5:23] so on this graph once again the Orange
[5:25] Line represents rendering using h.264
[5:27] and the blue line rendering using h.265
[5:30] you can see the different rendering
[5:32] bitrates on the horizontal axis and the
[5:34] corresponding visual quality on the
[5:36] vertical axis with a higher value
[5:38] representing a better visual quality
[5:41] as expected at 4K h.265 always produces
[5:44] the higher visual quality when compared
[5:46] to h.264 rendered at the same bit rate
[5:49] now quite interestingly you can achieve
[5:52] the exact same visual quality on YouTube
[5:54] with h.265 when decreasing your bit rate
[5:58] by 40 megabits per second of course this
[6:01] relationship isn't completely linear and
[6:03] I'd have to kind of extend the graph
[6:04] both to the left and the right to give
[6:07] you this information for all different
[6:08] kinds of bit rates but generally
[6:10] speaking if you're rendering 4K videos
[6:12] for YouTube you should definitely always
[6:15] stick to h.265 both for the better
[6:17] visual quality on YouTube and
[6:19] potentially lower render times depending
[6:22] on your system stepping down the
[6:24] resolution to 1440p we can see pretty
[6:27] much the same behavior by the way if you
[6:28] look at these graphs and think that
[6:30] these could be very handy in order to
[6:32] figure out the best possible bit rate to
[6:34] render your YouTube videos at to get the
[6:37] highest possible visual quality then you
[6:39] would be just right and that's actually
[6:41] something that I've covered in one of my
[6:43] past videos where I talked about the
[6:45] best bit rates depending on your
[6:46] resolution you can check it out Linked
[6:48] In the card right now and I'm actually
[6:50] also working on updating that video with
[6:53] actually better data and that is
[6:55] actually using 4K footage natively in
[6:58] order to do my tests so returning to
[7:00] this plant we can see that once again
[7:02] h.265 is far superior over h.264 at
[7:06] 1440p and will basically always result
[7:09] in higher visual quality on YouTube now
[7:12] the gap between these two curves
[7:13] slightly decreased compared to 4K we can
[7:16] see that the visual quality of a 70
[7:18] megabits render at h.264 is roughly
[7:22] equivalent to a 45 megabit render at
[7:24] h.265
[7:26] so roughly speaking you can decrease
[7:27] your bit rate by 25 megabits and still
[7:30] have the same visual quality as it had
[7:33] with the higher bit rate in h.264
[7:35] however generally speaking I would
[7:37] always recommend to increase your bit
[7:39] rate as far as possible in order to be
[7:41] able to make use of the much better
[7:44] looking video quality on YouTube when
[7:46] rendering at an even higher bit rate
[7:48] finally let's decrease our resolution
[7:50] once again to 1080P and here results
[7:53] look
[7:55] completely different I was actually
[7:57] getting this graph and was very confused
[8:00] till h.265 was far far worse than h.264
[8:06] by a pretty significant margin actually
[8:09] so I was a bit skeptical and therefore
[8:11] decided to re-record a one minute
[8:14] segment in Warzone 2 once again at 1080p
[8:17] rendered it at different bit rates in
[8:19] h264 and h265 uploaded it to YouTube
[8:22] redownloaded everything and analyzed it
[8:24] and that's what happened so once again
[8:27] definitely not what I would have
[8:28] expected so I re-rendered the h.265 once
[8:32] again the exact same clip uploaded again
[8:35] and then it looked like this
[8:37] so essentially what I'm thinking happens
[8:39] is that the much more compressed h.265
[8:41] video Simply doesn't contain enough
[8:44] information to provide a good h.264
[8:47] re-encode on YouTube also this isn't
[8:49] just a random outcome of the vmaf
[8:51] computation as when I visually compare
[8:54] the h.264 render to the h.265 render
[8:57] after downloading the clips from YouTube
[8:59] you can see that the h.264 is actually
[9:02] vastly Superior in terms of visual
[9:04] Clarity compared to the h.265 render now
[9:08] frankly I find it a bit concerning that
[9:10] at 1080p it seems to be a little bit
[9:13] random as to whether you're getting good
[9:15] or bad quality on YouTube when you
[9:17] upload your h.265 videos in 1080P so if
[9:21] having said all of this my conclusion
[9:22] would be that if you have to render your
[9:25] videos in 1080P then I would actually
[9:28] not recommend to use h.265 and use h.264
[9:32] instead however instead of actually
[9:35] uploading 1080 footage you should really
[9:37] consider to upscale your footage to
[9:39] 1440p and render it in that resolution
[9:42] in order to make sure that you can
[9:44] actually make use of the vp9 codec on
[9:47] YouTube now I'll make sure to include
[9:49] the visual quality that you can expect
[9:50] when upscaling a 1080p clip to 1440p or
[9:54] even 4K in this video where I'll talk
[9:57] about the best possible bitrate to use
[9:58] when rendering videos for YouTube in
[10:01] different resolutions so I hope you got
[10:03] value from this video thank you so much
[10:04] for watching have a wonderful day and
[10:06] I'll see you guys in the next video