| Using h.265 (HEVC) in Premiere.

Using h.265 (HEVC) in Premiere.

valid as of 12.2019

H.265/HEVC format and its application

H.265, also called High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), is a video compression standard that is designed to compress high-definition video more efficiently. The ultimate goal is to transmit high quality 4K content over existing communication channels. Netflix in August 2016 published the results of its comparison of the x264, VP9 and x265* codecs based on video clips from 500 films and TV shows, according to which the VP9 and x265 codecs provide 40-50% better 1080p compression than x264 (that is, the file size can be half of h.264). The algorithms used are more complex and require large computing resources: decoding requires approximately 2 times more power than h.264, and encoding requires several times more. The format is designed for high resolution; at low resolutions the superiority over h.264 is not so significant. In addition to the file size, HEVC has another serious advantage: it exhibits less blocking (banding) in overexposure - when squares become visible in areas close to pure white.

On video cameras, h.265 gained popularity in 2018, thanks to the new IPhone, GoPro Hero, DJI Phantom 4k. Also often used in IP CCTV cameras. H.265 is a format for playback on user devices: H.265 has been chosen as the actual television standard for 4K, TV ranges since 2015 have supported hevc, modern set-top boxes come with its support. You can upload h.265 to Facebook and Youtube. The container for h.265 is mp4 and mov files. Hardware support for h.265 encoding and decoding is available on NVidia video cards starting with Maxwell 9x0 series, new AMD cards, and Intel processors starting with Skylake.

The standard is not as widespread as h264, the obstacles are too complex compression algorithms and an overly expensive and complex licensing system (7 times more expensive than MPEG). Currently, Netflix and Youtube operate in VP9. The next open standard, AOMedia Video 1 (AV1), is approaching, which, with equal quality, will have a 25% lower bitrate and, most importantly, free, which is why Youtube plans to switch to it. The HEVC standard continues to evolve, so devices and programs that play early versions of hevc video are not guaranteed to be able to play all hevc videos. Sony is developing the XEVC codec, based on H.265 (HEVC) version 2. In 2020, hevc developers are going to adopt a standard for a new codec, and by the mid-20s introduce the codec into circulation: this vvc (h.266) is 30% more efficient than h.265.

There are ready-made presets for export. Their bitrate is set to 30-50% less than for similar presets for h.264, which indicates a smaller file size after export (50-70% of the standard MainConcept h.264). The price of this is several times longer encoding time depending on quality settings.
2015.3 added a 10-bit profile with Rec.2020 color.

Rovi Total Code for Premiere
There may be problems with importing h.265 if Rovi Total Code for Premiere is installed - if h.265 video exported from Premiere is imported normally with Rovi Total Code installed, then in video encoded in x265/1.5 only audio is imported into Premiere, since Rovi intercepts mp4 itself, but it does not know how to decode hevc. You don’t have to delete the plugin, but simply move its folder to another location so that if you need to import/export some exotic format, you can return it.

iPhone 8, X, 11 and Premiere

In new iPhones, video recording is done in hevc format into files with a mov or mp4 container. Depending on the version of Premiere and Windows, different situations arise:
* If you have Windows 10 and Premier version 2018.1 and later installed, then such files are imported without problems (you need a fresh build of win10 with HEVC Video Extensions or HEVC Video Extensions from the Device Manufacturer).
* If you have Premier 2018 and newer, but Windows 7, then the files are not imported. The problem is that in this version, Premier opens hevc using the system MFC decoder, which is not present in Win7. Alternatively, you can try renaming mov to mp4.
* If you have an old Premier (2017.x - 2015.1) and Win 10, then the easiest way is to install the latest version of Premier, or you can try renaming it to mp4 (mov files with hevc inside will open via Quicktime, but QT cannot work with hevc, so let's try to open them via ImporterMPEG).
* If you have an old Premier (2017.x - 2015.1) and Win 7, then you can try renaming it to mp4 (let's try opening it via ImporterMPEG).
* If you have a very old Premier (2015.0 and older) and any version of windows, you will have to recode.

** If the video in CC2019 freezes or jumps to the beginning when rewinding on the timeline, then you need to enable GPU decoding. If there is no GPU decoding (no Intel QSV), then you will have to re-encode.
** If you have the new Premiere installed, but in the trial version, then hevc files in any container will not open. It’s easy to check for a trial - hevc should be available for export in the full version.
** If renaming the files does not help, then you need to re-encode. You can do this right away on your iPhone using the "HEVC & H.264 Video Compressor" application; on your computer you can recode it in HandBrake or better yet, Avidemux.

There may also be a problem with audio and video being out of sync on the timeline. This is due to the fact that during recording some frames may be skipped (the so-called vfr) and Premier 2015.0, 2017.x, 2018.0 cannot process this correctly. Therefore, when transcoding such files, use converters that allow you to correct the frame rate (usually called constant frame rate).

To work comfortably on a timeline with such high-bitrate material, you need an Intel processor with hardware QSV decoding
The HEIF (HEIC) format in which new iPhones record images is supported in Premiere 2019/Windows10 with HEIF Image Extensions.

Voukoder plugin

Cinegy Daniel2

First of all, this is a commercial codec positioned as an alternative to DNxHD/ProRes editing codecs. A unique feature is that it works on a GPU (CUDA), due to this it is very fast, which is necessary for editing 4K, 8K, 16K material. The codec is universal - in the absence of a gpu it works on the processor and is also fast. The codec may be interesting as it has an input/output plugin for Premiere, and in addition to the Daniel2 codec itself, it has export to h.264 and hevc through the nvenc block of NVidia video cards. It has slightly higher system requirements: Windows 10 64bit and NVidia Pascal.

Other export plugins

Packages Drastic MediaReactor Workstation and Lite for Adobe versions have an h.265 import plugin. Professional package Sorenson Squeeze in versions 10 and 11 it supports h.265 and VP9 software encoding. The project was closed in 2018.
Commercial encoder Cinemartin CINEC has a plugin for Premiere, judging by the characteristics and functionality, based on the free ffmpeg, but at an inappropriately high price. The site has not been updated since 2014.

Converters

There are a significant number of converters to suit every taste. Our choice is Handbrake, IFME.

Export from Premiere via Frame Server

To directly export from Premier through external converters, you can use the Advanced Frame Server plugin.
1. Install Advanced Frame Server, remember the path where you installed it and copy dfscPremiereOut.prm from there to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\Plug-ins\7.0\MediaCore
2. Install the latest version of MediaCoder, download and install updates.
3. Export in the usual way (for example, File > Export > Movie) and select Advanced Frame Server as the output format.
4. Enter the name of the intermediate file for export, for example "signpost", Color space - YUY2.
5. Click "Export" to launch FrameServing.
6. Launch Mediacoder and load “signpost”, in the Video tab select Format: H.265, if the video card is NVidia GTX 950 or higher, then you can enable hardware encoding - select Encoder: NVENC.

7. Click "Start".
8. After finishing encoding in MediaCoder, all that remains is to cancel the export to Premiere. Unfortunately, due to this peculiarity of operation, batch encoding through Adobe Media Encoder proceeds manually.

You don't even need to use MediaCoder, StaxRip and similar front-ends. Frameserver allows you to work with encoders from the command line, use TSmuxer, FFMPEG and X265 directly. When exporting using this method, it is also possible to use h.265 hardware encoding if you have an NVidia video card from the 9x0 series or an Intel processor from the SkyLake series.
Among the disadvantages: there may be a problem with the bt.601 vs bt.709 color spaces.

useful links

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/whats-new.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/fixed-issues.html
https://blogs.gnome.org/rbultje/2016/12/13/overview-of-the-vp9-video-codec/

New budget solutions from Intel and AMD with tests using updated methods

Similar articles, in which we test various platforms for playing HD video of various formats, are gradually becoming a common addition to testing processors and graphics accelerators using traditional methods. Last time, desktop processors from Intel and AMD of various generations were targeted. This time we decided to study the capabilities of hardware decoders from updated budget solutions from both major manufacturers and competitors.

Updated testing methodology

But first, a few words about the updated testing methodology. Time does not stand still, Microsoft is pushing users in every possible way to leave the familiar Windows 7 for a newer version of the OS, and as a result, you can already find a lot of new hardware whose drivers are written for Windows 8 (8.1), and for Windows 7 are released later or never ever.

Mainly for this reason, we updated the OS on the test bench to Windows 8.1 (Professional x64 edition), including all updates as of September 2015. Since it would be incorrect to directly compare old results obtained on Windows 7 with new ones in any case, we switched to DXVA Checker version 3.8.0. This program has a very tester-friendly Benchmark mode, in which the video is played back as fast as the hardware or software decoder allows.

It is important to note that the previous parts of the summary testing used the same, very first version of DXVA Checker. Meanwhile, starting with version 2.0.0, the algorithm for the Benchmark mode has been greatly changed (probably, it has become more accurate and of higher quality, although in the evaluation mode “by eye” no difference can be seen), as a result of which the performance of all decoders without exception has become much more modest. To better see the difference between the old and new algorithms, we once again tested the platform based on the Intel Celeron G540, the capabilities of which were described in the third part of this testing.

The set of codecs, on the contrary, remained the same. It includes LAV Filters, Media Player Classic Black Edition (MPC-BE) and Windows Media Player 12. Some codecs are available both as DirectShow(DS) filters and as a component for the Media Foundation (ME) framework. In addition, with the transition to a 64-bit platform, it became possible to choose between 32- and 64-bit versions of the products mentioned above. Looking ahead, we note that today there is no practical difference between DS and ME, as well as 32- and 64-bit versions of codecs; their results differ within the error limit.

The list of test videos basically remained the same, however, for each of the scenarios, in addition to the familiar and well-supported H.264 (AVC) codec, a video encoded in the H.265 (HEVC) format was added - a more modern and progressive , but is still quite crude and poorly supported by both recording and playback devices. At the moment, support for hardware HEVC decoding can be considered a pleasant bonus and a foundation for the future. The main thing is that the final version of the standard should not be revised so much that currently produced decoders lose their relevance.

The videos themselves for testing were kindly prepared by the author of the “Digital Video” section, Sergey Merkov, you can download them in order to conduct similar testing of the software and hardware platform at your disposal:

Testing videos with a resolution below 1080p on modern platforms is pointless, so the “lightest” copy on our list roughly corresponds to the quality of BDRip 1080. Full HD videos available for online playback on Youtube and other video hosting sites, as a rule, have this same or lower bitrate. In the second video, the bitrate increases to 30 Mbit/s, which approximately corresponds to the quality of BDRemux, that is, Blu-ray without any compression that degrades the picture quality. The third video deliberately uses an abnormally high bitrate, which is not usually found in real life. This is a good test to identify the “safety margin” of the decoder being tested, but poor results in this particular video do not mean that the platform is not suitable as a basis for building an HTPC.

Even not the most expensive action cameras and smartphones can now shoot videos with the number of frames per second increased to 60, so an increasing number of sports videos, travel videos, and simply “vlogs” are becoming available in the format with 50 and 60 FPS. On the other hand, if you don’t need anything other than playing full-length films and TV series, then you don’t have to pay much attention to the quality of decoding such videos.

Video in 2160p resolution (aka 4K) has also become increasingly popular lately. And although there are still very few affordable and high-quality monitors and TVs with the appropriate resolution, and platforms with HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs of the appropriate standard are not found everywhere - still, playing such videos even on a screen with Full HD resolution will provide a gain in quality at least from -for a higher bitrate. Videos in this resolution are also presented with two bitrate options - normal and very high, similar to Full HD, which we talked about above.

The same six videos, while maintaining the bitrate and resolution parameters, were re-encoded into the H.265 (HEVC) format. The set of codecs and testing methodology using DXVA Checker are exactly the same for them; no additional actions or settings were performed.

Brief overview of tested platforms

There are 5 platforms in total in this part of testing, with only one completely new and unexplored - the Intel Celeron N3150 processor integrated on the ASRock N3150-ITX board. This processor is made using a 14 nm process technology and is part of the new Braswell line. Its eighth-generation Intel HD Graphics graphics accelerator is equipped with a hardware H.265 decoder and allows you to output images in 4K resolution via HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.

The full list of testing participants is as follows:

• Intel Celeron N3150 ()
• Intel Pentium J2900 (ASRock Q2900-ITX)
• AMD Athlon 5350 (Radeon HD8400 graphics)
• discrete video card AMD Radeon R7 240 (Asus R7240-SL-2GD3-L)

The frankly old Intel Celeron G540 processor was retested only to demonstrate the difference in the results of the old and new version of DXVA Checker, as we already mentioned above. The results of the Intel Pentium J2900 should be very similar to the results of the Celeron J1800, just as the AMD Athlon 5350 in terms of hardware decoding speed should not differ much from the AMD A6-5200, since these pairs are representatives of the same family - Bay Trail and Kabini, respectively.

In our testing of platforms, there is a clear lack of discrete video cards from AMD and Nvidia. Their main comparison will be presented in the following parts of the summary testing, and as a test step, we decided to look at the results of the AMD Radeon R7 240 graphics accelerator - a relatively new entry-level board without support for outputting images with Ultra HD resolution.

HD video playback

The summary chart includes the average number of FPS according to DXVAChecker data for the most productive decoder. For ease of perception, the results for H.264 and H.265 videos are presented separately.

The results were interesting and a little puzzling. All subjects coped quite successfully with videos in Full HD resolution. Problems arose only with the “old man” Celeron G540, which worked much more comfortably on the 32-bit version of Windows 7 with old drivers and codec versions. If earlier its hardware decoder was able to process absolutely any 1080p video at a tremendous speed, now the decoder turns on, there is no load on the central processor, but the video is clearly slow and played back with dropped frames. Using old videos (Ducks Take Off and Porsche Demo) and different players does not solve the problem, only disabling hardware acceleration and CPU decoding helps - in this mode, a video with a resolution of 1080p and a speed of 60 FPS is played back normally.

With ultra-high definition video the situation is noticeably worse. On the newest Intel Celeron N3150, the hardware decoder turns on, but does not work fast enough - small frame drops occur periodically, this will be annoying during moments of sudden picture changes. The gaps are also visible during normal video playback via Windows Media Player and MPC-BE, so this does not look like an error in DXVA Checker. Perhaps the situation will improve with the release of a new version of Intel drivers.

The older Intel Pentium J2900 copes with the task a little better, although it has almost no headroom. And this despite the fact that with the old OS and drivers, its closest “relative” Celeron J1800 showed approximately twice the best result.

We have previously seen that the integrated Radeon HD8000 graphics chip is not equipped with a hardware 4K video decoder and, therefore, the playback of such videos falls entirely on the CPU. The AMD Athlon 5350 handles this task a little better than the AMD A6-5200, but in any case it is not fast enough for a stable 30 frames per second. It was interesting to see what AMD's entry-level discrete card could do. After all, if it is practically unsuitable for games, then perhaps a more advanced hardware video decoder is installed in it. However, in fact it turned out that the Radeon R7 240 is no different from the Radeon HD8000 either in speed or in the number of supported formats: only Full HD, no 4K.

It’s interesting that the result of software decoding of a 2160p stream for the Intel Celeron G540 processor has become noticeably higher than it was on Windows 7. Now its performance is quite enough for 4K videos with a standard bitrate. At the same time, the load on the processor does not rise above 85%, so there is still a small margin for background operations that can interfere with smooth video playback.

The results of the AMD Radeon R7 240 graphics card are not presented in this diagram for the simple reason that there is no hardware HEVC accelerator in this chip, and the speed of the software decoder depends solely on the speed of the central processor. In this case, the discrete video chip does not help or interfere with the process.

Of the remaining test participants, the hardware H.265 stream decoding unit was found only in the Intel Celeron N3150, and this completely coincides with the stated platform specifications. It’s interesting that the H.265 decoding speed of the new Intel processor is even slightly higher than for the older and more common H.264. This is especially important and noticeable when playing video in 2160p resolution: if gaps were noticeable on AVC videos both in benchmark mode and in regular players, then with HEVC the situation is somewhat improved, 4K videos with an adequate bitrate can be watched at a speed of 30 frames per second . True, there is still no “margin of safety”, which is somewhat alarming and frustrating.

The computing power of all other platforms is quite enough to play Full HD videos in the new format, even at double the frame rate. But if you raise the bitrate to abnormally high values ​​or increase the resolution to 2160p, watching the video turns into a slideshow.

Results

Based on the results of the next part of the summary testing, two main conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, entry-level AMD 2xx discrete video cards have exactly the same speed and supported formats hardware decoder for video streams as the graphics accelerators built into modern APUs from this company. The capabilities of this decoder today cover the needs of most users, because working with the H.265 codec and 4K resolution is still more exotic than an everyday necessity. However, the AMD Radeon R7 240 and other accelerators built on a similar GPU do not provide any foundation for the future, and this makes them slightly less attractive compared to their competitors.

Secondly, the Intel hardware decoder for processors from the Braswell line can be called one of the most advanced on the x86-compatible equipment market. It includes support for both ultra-high resolution 4K and the new promising H.265 codec (HEVC). However, it is not always possible to fully use it out of the box. Our tests have shown that finding the solution that is optimal in terms of speed may not require the fastest and most exciting process of selecting the version of the operating system, drivers, codecs, player and setting them up together.

20.11.2013

Over the past four years, H.264 has become the dominant video codec in the security industry, but recently a number of manufacturers and experts have begun to push H.265 very aggressively. In connection with the arrival of a new codec, a number of questions arise. First of all, the public is interested in two things: when HEVC will become commonly used and how long this will last. However, the editors are interested in slightly more deeply buried things: for example, who will receive the main benefits from the transition to a new coding standard, and whether this is another marketing trick to shift the market balance towards certain players. Undoubtedly, from the technical side, the new format differs from its predecessors. I would just like to make sure that all the reserves of the “old” H.264 have already been exhausted. After all, changing the format is, in essence, a revolution. For the success of which, as grandfather Lenin said, it is necessary that “the lower classes do not want, but the upper classes cannot.”

The declared key marketing differences - or, in simple terms, the “trick” of the codec, called both HEVC and H.265, are that with the same image quality, the H.265 video stream has half the bitrate than the stream compressed by the H codec .264. For example, if the bitrate for transmitting a 1080p video stream compressed with the H.264 codec at a frame rate of 30 frames per second is approximately 4 megabits per second, then for an image of equivalent quality compressed with the new H.265 codec, the bitrate will drop to 2 megabits per second. It looks attractive, however, as always, the question arises about the price of this transition.

Whether the game is worth the candle is, unfortunately, not for you and me to decide. The position of the Security News editors is known. We advocate the creation of a specialized codec that would take into account all the features and specific requirements imposed on the transmission of video data in security systems. Surprisingly, despite the “multimedia” origin of the H.265 codec, some of “our” needs were taken into account here (read about this below). The last word, as usual in serious industries, always belongs to large manufacturers of equipment and systems. And the “whales” of the security industry are in no hurry to add one to the name of the codec: on the one hand, the maneuverability of production facilities is not so high, and on the other, too much money has been invested in the promotion of H.264 in recent years. Don't let the goodness go to waste...

Technical differences of H.265

The new codec's improved performance over its predecessors is due to several significant structural improvements. Three of them are decisive: changing the maximum block size, introducing parallel decoding and implementing random access to images within the video stream.

Maximum block size in the H.264 standard it is 256 pixels (16 x16), and in the H.265 standard it can be 16 times larger (4096 = 64 x 64). Interestingly, in the H.265 standard, the block size is selected by the algorithm itself during the encoding process, depending on the content of the encoded image. According to supporters of the new standard, the variable block size and increase in the maximum limit of this size will allow more efficient processing of high-resolution images. By the way, the new standard supports pixel resolutions up to 8192 x 4320 (35 megapixels) - the highest of modern television standards, also called 8K.

Opportunity parallel decoding, provided in H.265 decoders, allows different parts of the same frame to be processed separately and simultaneously. This processing can significantly speed up playback and provides the opportunity to take advantage of multi-core processors, which have gained great popularity in IT-oriented markets today. The H.264 codec did not provide such capabilities.

The new standard provides random access to images(Clean Random Access). This means that a randomly selected frame of a video sequence is decoded without the need to decode any images preceding it in the stream. For multimedia, random access is not critical, but for video surveillance, especially real-time monitoring, this feature is highly desirable: by switching to a specific video stream for reasons of operational necessity, the operator should instantly receive an image on his screen: in security applications one or two seconds may be decisive. Omitting the complex technical details of how this is implemented in the new codec, it is worth mentioning that it does not require the mandatory insertion of intermediate reference frames (I-frames) into the video stream, due to which the bitrate significantly increases.

In terms of the technical characteristics of the encoded video signal, its “upper” Main 10 profile provides higher color quality, since it provides 10-bit color encoding, while all existing standards, including the “lower” Main 8 profile of H.265 itself, provide There are only 8 bits per pixel color attribute.

The standard provides means for automatically determining the scan type, however, unlike its predecessors, the codec is initially focused on processing video images obtained by progressive scanning. But this does not mean that H.265 is unable to work with interlaced scanning - the developers took into account the fact that a fairly large number of systems in operation generate frames from two fields.

But here's what the H.265 codec is significantly lacking: scalable encoding. It was planned to be implemented in H.264, but for some reason this could not be done in any of these standards. The presence of scaling would make it possible to transfer images to clients using relatively slow network connections without wasting additional computing power on additional processing. To some extent, scaling also contributes to a more rational use of video data storage in systems. Currently, scalable encoding is among the planned extensions of the standard. According to experts, the requirement for scalability is largely dictated by the emerging boom in cloud technologies for data storage and processing.

What helps improve image quality

A large number of IT product manufacturers are promoting the H.265 compression format as a means of improving image quality. It should be noted that this is to a certain extent disingenuous. In reality, images compressed with an H.265 encoder have no higher quality than those processed with the H.264 algorithm, which, in turn, is no better in terms of quality than MPEG-4. Since all of the mentioned codecs provide the ability to arbitrarily set the compression level, the quality of the compressed image depends only on the user’s preferences. Another thing is to fit the video image into the realities of the technical environment. First of all, this concerns network bandwidth resources.

If your network has enough bandwidth to support H.264-compressed images, switching to H.265 compression will not provide any improvement in image quality. Such a transition can only reduce the bitrate, that is, somewhat relieve your network. The only case when switching to a new codec will help improve image quality is if, for reasons of saving bitrate, images were obviously excessively compressed by the H.264 codec, and compression artifacts interfered with the efficient reading of details by operators and video analysts.

Doubts and limitations

Like most modern video codecs, H.265 is most effective (that is, it is able to confirm marketing expectations) in relatively simple surveillance scenes, where there are no sharp changes in contrast and there is no intense movement of objects and backgrounds. The promised saving of 50% in bitrate/storage volume primarily concerns such scenes. That is, in real conditions - at a busy intersection or in a supermarket sales area - the savings figures will be significantly smaller.

In addition, today all the “economic” advantages of the predecessor codec are not really in demand. Most equipment and system manufacturers, in particular, have not made the transition to more advanced versions of H.264 profiles. In video surveillance, three profiles of this standard are most often used. The Baseline profile is the minimum bandwidth savings and the minimum load on computing resources. In the last few years, it has gained the greatest popularity among vendors. The main profile (Main) provides, according to the results of independent tests, a 10-30% improvement in performance compared to the basic one. Over the past few months, manufacturers have shown increasing interest in this particular profile. The High profile provides even more significant benefits, but today the number of vendors that have provided compatibility with this profile can literally be counted on one hand.

In other words, manufacturers have room to develop even without a new codec, without experiencing unnecessary risks and moving along a relatively well-established path. Since the industry, with the transition to IP video, is increasingly becoming “IT”, considerations typical of system administrators begin to work here: what works normally is better not to change or touch at all.

As you know, we all love to watch movies, videos or programs in good quality. But in terms of storing video on a computer, many problems arise, usually associated with a simple lack of space. A new standard appeared relatively recently, and many users immediately had a logical question: “What is HEVC?” Let's consider several main aspects related to the implementation and practical use of the new codec.

What is it: HEVC

If we talk about films that are recorded on removable media, usually the size of the disc itself affects the choice of method. The same Blu-ray discs can store high-definition films with volumes of more than 25 GB. However, you must agree that keeping such a film on a hard drive, especially when its capacity is clearly limited, is completely impractical from a practical point of view.

For this, video encoding is used, which allows you to reduce the size of the final file even without compromising quality through special compression methods. But in practice, what is this? HEVC is by far the most advanced codec, one might even say a revolution in the field of video. But what is it about the old H.264 codec that doesn’t suit fans of high-quality video?

High Efficiency Video Coding: Coding Basics

To do this, you should turn to understanding the basics of signal coding. The fact is that the use of the maximum block plays one of the main roles here. For H.264 this is 16 x 16 or a total of 256 pixels.

For the new H.265 standard, such a block can be 16 times larger! And if we also take into account variable block technologies, when the block size is selected directly by the algorithm itself during the compression process, it is not difficult to realize that the new codec is, so to speak, the most “tolerant” of high resolutions and today even supports 8k (8192 x 4320 pixels ). You can also add a parallel encoding function here. Thus, the HEVC codec, with high image quality, allows you to reduce the bitrate and, accordingly, the file size. Space savings compared to the H.264 standard can reach 25-50%!

4k and 8k support: how effective is it?

As for the effectiveness of using such a codec, at the dawn of its appearance it did not gain much popularity. This was due to the fact that only the most powerful and modern graphics chips GeForce 970 or 980 could provide support for the new standard.

Actually, the encoding process itself on other less powerful devices took about 10-12 hours. Thus, from a practical point of view, the application of the new standard was disadvantageous.

Over time, the situation has changed, and now H.265-based technologies are beginning to be used everywhere. In terms of space savings compared to H.264, a fairly eloquent example can be given. At 720p resolution, the savings rate is about 25%, and at 4k quality - more than 50%. By the way, if you rip a Blu-ray disc, the size of the original video can be reduced by almost 10 times (it will weigh just over 3 GB)!

Main innovations

If you look at some of the innovations, among all that is presented in the requirements for the new codec, we can note the following:

• support for Main profiles 8 and 10 bits (in the future - 12 bits);
• availability of two-dimensional separable, non-separable and directional interpolation filters ASF;
• motion compensation with 1/8 pixel accuracy;
• use of an adaptive error prediction and matrix selection system during the encoding process;
• the presence of a comparative motion vector coding scheme;
• mode-dependent intraframe coding.

What software to use to watch movies in the new format

So, we figured out the codec itself. What it is (HEVC), I think, is already a little clear. Now let's move on to the most pressing issue, which undoubtedly interests most users. What should you use to watch video encoded using new algorithms?

In principle, in the simplest version, you can use software players. One of the most interesting, according to many, is the specialized and highly focused application Daum PotPlayer. If this option is not suitable, you can use the popular VLC Media Player, but you must install the latest version, since only it has built-in support for HEVC.

However, despite all the advantages, there are also a lot of problems. For the most part, this only applies to the fact that on the Internet you can now find not many films or videos encoded using the new algorithm. What's even more frustrating is the lack of support from vendors. If the issues with software are still somehow being resolved, then manufacturers of home theaters or Smart TV are in no hurry to master the production of products with H.265 support. And the codec itself, although considered revolutionary, has not yet received much widespread use. But I would like to hope that this is a temporary phenomenon.

Instead of a total

That's all there is to it in brief about the new standard in video encoding. Of course, not all technical aspects of the new technology were touched upon here, but even such brief information will help any user draw a conclusion about the main innovations, the feasibility of introducing and practical use of such technologies. But by and large, they can change all our ideas about the quality and processing of video information. And, apparently, the outdated H.264 standard will soon go into oblivion, because technology does not stand still. If we take a long-term perspective, it may very well be that instead of the HEVC codec, something even more powerful will be developed.

For DivX Software (or ). Enable the conversion and playback of DivX video with DTS-HD audio, including HEVC video content up to 4K. The DTS-HD Plug-in allows you to convert and play videos with DTS audio tracks for studio-quality sound. Whether enjoying entertainment at home or on the go, DTS aims to provide the finest audio experience possible no matter what device you are using.

• Convert your videos with multi-channel audio tracks into the DTS format
• Play videos with DTS sound tracks in DivX Player for an even more cinematic experience
• Play your videos anytime, anywhere on your DivX devices with DTS audio support

The DTS-HD Plug-in for DivX Software includes DTS-HD Master Audio™, which decodes all DTS codecs including DTS Digital Surround™, DTS Express™, and DTS Coreless lossless streams, with the DTS decoder. Depending on the DTS codec used to create the audio in your file, DTS may allow up to 7.1 discrete channels and a data savings that makes encoding faster with better quality.

For DTS patents, seehttp://patents.dts.com . Manufactured under license from DTS Licensing Limited. DTS, DTS-HD, the Symbol, & DTS or DTS-HD and the Symbol together are registered trademarks and DTS-HD Master Audio is a trademark of DTS, Inc. © DTS, Inc. All Rights Reserved.