Video Conversion: from whatevver to x265 is not more efficient?

[Valmont]

HI, I'm a newbie when it comes to video processing. So far I have experience with:
- converting avi's and whatnot to MP4 x264 with AviDemux with MKV as output
- converting DTS to AAC because my TV doesn't understand DTS, again with AviDemux
- Adding subtitles to whatever and converting it to MKV with MKVToolNix Gui
- Converting ISO to MKV with MakeMKV

Now it's time for a little more advanced usage I feel.
The story out there is that x265 offers more compression (compared with x264) without loss. But I am not capable of doing that; I.e. the conversion takes twice as long, at least, but the file size is the same. I could use help so I can move to a next level of video processing. Be gentle, again I'm a newb and a lot of stuff and lingo goes over my head. Cheers!

[sneaker]

Does your TV play H.265/HEVC? Seems like a potential waste of time if you don't have a suitable player.

AviDemux does include x265. So if you are used familiar with it just select x265 in AviDemux' video section.

[Valmont]

Does your TV play H.265/HEVC? Seems like a potential waste of time if you don't have a suitable player.

AviDemux does include x265. So if you are used familiar with it just select x265 in AviDemux' video section.

Yes, my Panasonic 49DX650E does support x265 (but oddly does not support DTS and various formats in AVI containers, hence the reason I began converting all my stuff (LOT of stuff) and now I'm ready to make a next little step forward skillwise. Cheers. Right now I'm converting an AVI (DIV3) into a MKV (HEVC x265). Takes much longer but last time it didn't produce a smaller size. I'll edit this in 3 minutes when a next attempt is done.

Edit: result is comparable size to x264.

[sneaker]

Encoding using x265 can be bigger, smaller or identical to the size of the source file. This depends on how you set it up. If you set a bitrate you decide how big it will be. If you set a CRF it will try to hit a specific quality but you cannot predict the bitrate (so it can be bigger, smaller or identical). There is no setting "exact quality as source, just smaller".

[Valmont]

Encoding using x265 can be bigger, smaller or identical to the size of the source file. This depends on how you set it up. If you set a bitrate you decide how big it will be. If you set a CRF it will try to hit a specific quality but you cannot predict the bitrate (so it can be bigger, smaller or identical). There is no setting "exact quality as source, just smaller".

Oh, I though x265 by definition would yield a smaller footprint without loss of quality compared with x264!

[Selur]

stating the obvious: "Reencoding to a lossless format includes should be expected to include some loss."
So unless you encode into a lossless output format your output will always be lossy .

[sophisticles]

stating the obvious: "Reencoding to a lossless format includes should be expected to include some loss."
So unless you encode into a lossless output format your output will always be lossy .

I think you meant "lossy" instead of "lossless".

@OP: The encoder used has nothing to do with the size of a video file, size is determined by the bit rate used times the length of the video.

What may be confusing you is that if you were to start with a lossless source, (or even with a high quality mezzanine codec) and were to encode that file multiple times, once each with each encoder tested, in theory, hevc would need less bit rate than avc to achieve the same quality level, avc would need less bit rate than mpeg-4 asp, mpeg-4 asp would need less than mpeg-2 and sp on.

This of course becomes less and less true the more bit rate is used and at some point all the encoders will produce the same quality, for example at something like 50 mb/s for 1080p mpeg-2 and avc will produce identical results, at about 25 mb/s avc and hevc will produce identical results and so on.

[Selur]

@sophisticles: LOL you are right

[Valmont]

@@sophisticles oh ok then I have no reason to pursuit messing with HEVC 265 right now.

[Zero-11]

Does your TV play H.265/HEVC? Seems like a potential waste of time if you don't have a suitable player.

Everyone has a Smartphone and can use Miracast to stream HEVC material.

[KarMa]

Does your TV play H.265/HEVC? Seems like a potential waste of time if you don't have a suitable player.

Everyone has a Smartphone and can use Miracast to stream HEVC material.

That depends on your device (smartphone) being able to play HEVC. Which means you need a very recently made device with a HEVC decoder chip for that to even be possible. My iphone 4S certainly won't do it.