The problem is that even extremely powerful hardware will have difficulty transcoding to H.265 in real time, and very few clients support decoding it, so any media you have in h.265 will need to be transcoded to h.264 in real time, reducing quality.
It really is best to wait, for now.
Quite a few of us DO want to use H.265. If you think that most videos on the Internet are encoded with H.264, then I would have to disagree with you. So, I have to transcode them anyway. With my disk space at a premium, a little extra load on my processor is not an issue for me. Granted encoding these videos require a LOT of horsepower. Yes I have H.265 titles that I encoded and they play back FAR more easily than you would think. You would like to wait. What exactly would you be waiting on?
You would like to wait. What exactly would you be waiting on?
Now that FFmpeg supports HEVC decoding it probably wouldn't be that much work for Plex to add support for transcoding from HEVC to AVC -- but the other way around is far too much to ask at this point.
How difficult an HEVC stream is to decode depends on how it was encoded, just like AVC.
If you think that most videos on the Internet are encoded with H.264, then I would have to disagree with you.
Actually, that is the current running standard for video online. YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo.... just about any respectable streaming website and the Scene use H264 for video encoding.
Actually, that is the current running standard for video online. YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo.... just about any respectable streaming website and the Scene use H264 for video encoding.
Perhaps h.265 is becoming more popular among torrents? I wouldn't know.
Perhaps h.265 is becoming more popular among torrents? I wouldn't know.
In my experience almost noone is using h265 for anything of significance, yet. The few times I've seen h265 encoded files are from people experimenting with it, or the bleeding edge video enthusiasts.
In my experience almost noone is using h265 for anything of significance, yet. The few times I've seen h265 encoded files are from people experimenting with it, or the bleeding edge video enthusiasts.
That's exactly my experience, so far. I still think it's best to wait for h.265 to mature. Many x265 encodes I've previewed could be matched by x264 in terms of encoding efficiency (quality per bit), while x264 outperforms x265 in encoding time by a wide margin. h.265 when fully harnessed is very promising, but the h.265 encoders just aren't there yet.
Maybe the naysayers should start a thread on why the public should use not H.265 ... Meanwhile, I will be encoding my 1700+ DVDs and Blu-rays using x265.
Either way, this won't happen until the FFmpeg library in Plex is updated to a build that supports h265. And that likely won't happen for a while because XBMC (which Plex is a fork of) hasn't updated to support h265 yet. They did attempt to a few weeks ago, but they aborted when they encountered a severe memory leak with the new FFmpeg build. It's a lot more work than just dropping in a new build and expecting nothing to break. They're going to try again in the next major release and, if successful, it will eventually find its way downstream to Plex.
Yes h265 will eventually supercede h264 but not anytime soon. The x265 encoder/decoder is still very young, so it's curently computionally expensive to encode/decode h265 streams. And there won't be hardware support for the codec until late this year or early next so streaming to practically every device will require transcoding.
After moussa.uk´s excellent response I kindly ask that unneeded info in here stops flowing. People that would like this feature can continue to vote by clicking the green "Like this" on the original post. And the ones that do not want the Plex developers to add this can of course add their thoughts on that in this discussion, and healthy discussions around that can be held. But everything else added in this thread is just noise and not wanted.
I personally believe that there is nothing to discuss about, as of course H265 will be supported in the future. And as always, no you will not get a date on when that will happen. With 99.99% likelihood you will not even get a guess for a release month. As many of you have understood it will not be before the XBMC crew has managed to add a stable version in there, and then the Plex crew needs to find time to do the Plex integration. And I suspect/guess it will be a few months before that is even attempted as I guess they will not only add H265 support but more likely add more things from the Gotham release when it goes stable.
So, it is up to you guys. Sure, compress your things using the H265/x265 codec, but you will not be able to play it back in Plex for awhile. Personally I think it is not a good idea, as the both the decoder and encoder most likely is only in the early stages now. It will not produce the same quality output today as it will in 6 months. Sure, an improved decoder can still playback things you compress now. But if the encoder is getting improvements (which is very very likely) you will have to redo all the encodes you do now (if you want to have the best possible image quality).
Maybe the naysayers should start a thread on why the public should use not H.265 ... Meanwhile, I will be encoding my 1700+ DVDs and Blu-rays using x265.
Yet you're using Plex that does not yet support video encoded by x265... go figure.
Yes, HEVC is the future -- but no, it's implementation in x265 not ready for the masses, yet. For high quality encodes, x264 still outperforms it -- x265 blurs things too much at sane max-rates. For very low bit-rate encodes, x265 is outperforming x264 by a small margin, but so few clients that would make use of this low bit-rate (phones, tablets, etc.) support HVEC decoding, and real-time x265 encoding for multiple streams on the average PC is still ways off.
Yet you're using Plex that does not yet support video encoded by x265... go figure.
Please tone it down. This will only stir it up more. He may not be using Plex for everything.
Civil tone and lots of hugs and smileys and I think this can continue to be a nice thread. B)
[..]So, it is up to you guys. Sure, compress your things using the H265/x265 codec, but you will not be able to play it back in Plex for awhile. Personally I think it is not a good idea, as the both the decoder and encoder most likely is only in the early stages now. [.]
What i know Cisco/Tandberg are launching there new line of Video Conference Codecs. They had a gathering here in Norway yesterday, nice stuff! Anyway, all the new codecs are running 265 so i don't think 265 are in the early stages anymore.
What i know Cisco/Tandberg are launching there new line of Video Conference Codecs. They had a gathering here in Norway yesterday, nice stuff! Anyway, all the new codecs are running 265 so i don't think 265 are in the early stages anymore.
Yes, Cisco is pursuing h265 because they control both the hardware and software at the endpoints. They are also dealing in lower effective resolutions because most people do not host teleconferences using a ton of vivid colors and studio lighting. In short, their subject matter is vastly more compressible than movie content. To suggest that this is a leading indicator for consumer device adoption is completely invalid.
The reason that clients work so well and so cheaply now is that they include h264 processing in hardware. This is resulting in a Chromecast (at $35) being competitive with an HTPC in terms of picture quality as a Plex Client. For now, the considerably higher cost of pre-transcoding material into H265 and then back into H264 (in terms of processor upgrade cost) will considerably outstrip the storage savings gained. The turning point, as we have seen it proven with h264, will be when inexpensive client hardware is available to process h265 streams natively. Until that occurs, this is an academic discussion.
Handbrake supports decoding h265. Perfect for converting the few experimental x265 encodes you’ll find to h264 using the more matured, and arguably best video encoder currently available, x264.
