H.264 Vs H.265

Image Quality

And Bandwidth Consumption

With same video image quality

With same video image quality

Names

MPEG 4 Part 10 AVC

MPEG-H, HEVC, Part 2

Industry Adoption

Accept video codec for Terrestrial, Cable, Satellite and IPTV broadcast. Widely used across Blu-Ray, security systems, videoconferencing , mobile video, media players, video chat etc

Implementation demonstration across NAB, IBC and other events starting 2012 from companies e.g. ATEME, Broadcom, Thomson , Harmonic (Cisco), Ericsson, Qualcomm etc.. Increased R&D across Encoder/Decoder /CE vendors for software and hardware based solutions

Key Achievement

About 50% bit rate reduction compared to MPEG-2

About 50% the bit rate reduction at the same visual quality compared to H.264

Available to deliver HD sources for Broadcast and Online

It's likely to implement UHD, 2K, 4K for Broadcast and Online (OTT)

Successor

Successor to MPEG-2 Part

Successor to MPEG 4 AVC, H.264

Compression Model

Hybrid spatial-temporal prediction model

Enhanced Hybrid spatial-temporal prediction model

- Flexible partition of Macro Block (MB) , sub MB for motion estimation

- Flexible partitioning, introduces Coding Tree Units (Coding, Prediction and Transform Units -CU, PU, TU)

- Intra Prediction with 9 directional modes

- 35 directional modes for intra prediction

- With multi-view extension

- Superior parallel processing architecture, enhancements in multi-view coding extension

-  Entropy coding is CABAC and CAVLC

- Entropy coding is only CABAC

In-Depth Support

Support Up to 4K (4,096×2,304)

Up to 8K UHDTV (8192×4320)

Supports up to 59.94 fps

Supports up to 300 fps

21 profiles ; 17 levels

3 approved profiles, draft for additional 5 ; 13 levels

Drawbacks

Due to high bit rate requirements, it's tough to deliver UHD content. Also frame rate is restrictive to support 59.94

Computationally expensive  (~ 300 % + ) due to larger prediction units and expensive Motion Estimation (Intra prediction with more nodes, asymmetric partitions in Inter Prediction).

Approved Year

2003

2013