Battle of Video Codecs H.264 vs. H.265

Although H.265 is nothing new in the industry, there are still many vendors/platforms that do not support this codec. Let’s look into the codecs world and find out what H.265 offers and why you should consider its support when deploying your own IPTV/OTT solution. 

Most of you know codec H.264. This codec has been among us for more than a decade. I personally remember the first movies packed with H.264 and a lack of devices supporting it, but this has changed quickly as H.264 brought an extremely efficient compression: quality ratio. Soon, most devices started supporting it and today, H.264 is the most common codec used for video streaming as well as for compressing video from your camera.

Fasten your seatbelts, we are riding fast forward to the new era of Ultra HD video. Higher resolution, higher bitrate and customer demand for the best quality possible pose new challenges to compress these files even more efficiently. The answer is the H.265 codec.

The main advantage of H.265 over H.264 is a significantly better compression for Full HD and Ultra HD (4K) videos while maintaining the image quality. That means H.265 compressed videos are smaller in size and less demanding on bitrate. You can save more than 50 % of disk space for storage as well as bandwidth for distribution. To make it crystal clear, a full HD video compressed with H.264 needs the same bandwidth as Ultra HD video compressed with H.265.

If you are asking: Should my IPTV/OTT platform be capable of using H.265 codec? The answer is YES. Majority of today’s devices are already equipped with its support. In the case there are some legacy devices on your network with no H.265 codec support, it is always possible to provide content in both H.264 and H.265. With the fast adoption of new technologies and standards, we are very close to the day when the Ultra HD streaming based on H.265 codec will be the standard.

Mind that the ModernTV IPTV/OTT solution supports both of these codecs for some time already while achieving the lowest bitrate possible. Do you have any questions or do you want to try our platform? Please do not hesitate to contact us.