How would you improve the quality of this video?
You might think that it can only be done with larger files and faster internet connections.
But no- you can also manage it with more efficient video compression and you’ll be able to
get both a better quality video with a smaller filesize at the same time.
A real win-win!
Being a Youtuber I need to know… very little about this, as long as my videos look okay.
But I dabble because I’m interested and today I’m comparing h264, a current standard,
against the newer h265!
Just so you know, there are other types as well.
Google’s equivalents of these are VP8 and 9.
But I’ll be using the H’s in this video to keep things simple.
To really appreciate the differences, please watch this video on Youtube at at least HD
quality and with adblock disabled.
And subscribe.
Seriously though, the higher the quality you watch this video in, the better.
Time to start with the lowest quality H264 that I can use.
Urgh!
A video of this quality is 3 MB a minute.
Clearly, this is not big enough for it to store all of the information it needs.
But it nicely shows the tricks that videos use to try and save space.
Every frame isn’t a whole new image.
Most are the same as the older one with a few minor updates.
You can see smeary marks where this isn’t done quite right.
Occasionally it will suddenly SNAP to a better looking version.
This is called a keyframe and it’s used to refresh the entire picture when the old
one becomes too bad to use any more.
These use more filesize up but keep the video quality acceptable.er.
And lastly, even though this is a full 1920x1080 video, it looks a lot lower.
This is it admitting that it doesn’t have enough resources to do as it’s told and
it has no choice but to disappoint you with blocky artefacts.
It’s so sorry.
It did its best.
Now let’s see what it can do if we double the filesize.
In the first room you can see that there are fewer black smeary traces, the edges of objects
are clearer and the lighting is smoother.
It’s still not perfect by any means but it’s a big improvement.
The same for the outside area.
To me that looks far better than twice as good.
It’s now more on par with what Windows Movie Maker would have given you 10 years ago!
The alternating colour room is still a mess.
Only a little bit better than before in my opinion.
But it seems that even low video quality can’t stop the guy at the end from looking SUPER
SEXY.
Now, moving up again from 5 MB per minute to 12, we’re finally approaching the low
end of acceptable.
But still low.
It’s still not enough information to make it look like the resolution it’s meant to
be but gone are the horrible streaks across the screen.
Colour gradients in the dark room are much clearer and we can now see all of the leaves
and branches outside, even if the grass still looks like toxic slime.
The zig-zag room still looks blocky, the smoke room looks smoky and the sexy man still looks
sexy.
You can see extra details popping up on the walls once the action slows down enough.
Videos like slow moving things a lot more.
I know you’re getting bored, I KNOW you want to see what H265 can do, so I’m going
to skip from 12 to 110 MB per minute, which is the highest of this test.
Quality is great, as expected.
It’s not perfect.
Some of the gradients aren’t completely smooth and pausing it sees that it skimps
on the minor, subtle details.
But it’s up to a level where viewing it on Youtube will look the same as the original
would.
So for the sake of this video, this is perfect quality.
But wait, where’s the cut off where it actually looks perfect?
You might ask.
There isn’t one, unless you have a full, uncompressed, 60 images a second video that
takes up your entire hard drive!
With compression, it’s a gradual improvement from unacceptable to nigh-on perfect.
And without seeing all of the different versions it’s going to be tough for you to decide
where to draw the line.
But life is short, so let’s get onto H265.
Starting with the highest quality, where the differences are smallest.
But I can say that, from quickly flicking between them, H265 has slightly clearer edges
and better colour gradients without banding and blockiness.
But really, the differences are incredibly small and without the original file it can
be hard at times to know which is more accurate.
And now for the exciting bit.
Let’s move straight on down to the smallest H264 file again.
The blur.
The smudge.
The blockiness!
Disgusting.
But it is just 3 MB per minute!
Let’s take a look at how the newer H265 can do.
Night and day difference.
No blurring.
Very clean edges.
Smoother lighting gradients.
What about outsi- OH MY.
It’s like we’re looking at trees and grass, instead of… a mosaic.
It even has a decent stab at the alternating room, replacing blocky bugs with far less
distracting yet somewhat mesmerising wavy lines.
The smoke looks like smoke, and the guy at the end looks much sexier.
So yeah, it destroys H264 of the same filesize.
It easily beats one that’s double the filesize!
What a clever codec.
I think it finally meets its match when against an h264 file 3 times bigger.
In some places it’s clearly worse, but in others, markedly better.
But I’d say a 2.5 MB H265 file is as good as a 7.5 MB H264 file in this comparison.
That’s a huge leap in efficiency.
This new standard works best in small-sized videos, which is annoying when you think about
it ‘cos the internet 10 years ago could really have done with this back then.
So why didn’t we have it back then?
It’s to do with how the compression works.
Instead of remembering 60 different images a second, a video chops scenes up into squares,
deciding whether to rotate, move or to entirely update each bit.
For example, sky doesn’t change that much so it’ll just say to slide it slowly for
a second or so, which uses less information than updating it completely 60 times a second.
The older H264 standard did this as well, but H265 is more flexible.
It has more commands to use, which lets it more accurately update the image.
Plus, it can split the scene up in more ways, using larger blocks to save filesize if it
thinks it can get away with it.
The downside of H265 is that needs a more powerful computer to do these extra functions.
This is why we couldn’t have had it 10 years ago.
It requires double the power to be able to play a file and takes 10 times as long to
make it in the first place.
Which won’t matter to you if you only watch the videos.
But this exciting journey doesn’t stop at H265!
It can be improved upon further, plus it’s expensive to license, allowing Google’s
VP10 and others to succeed it by offering free-to-use, faster and efficient-er video
formats in the future.
In short: Youtube will look better, will run faster, you’ll get higher standards on disk
mediums (but who uses those any more?) …and the hacker known as 4chan will get smaller
torrent files.