HomeHot discussion about H.265 and H.264 is still underway. Technically, H.264 is the most widely accepted and adopted format in online and broadcast domain for content compression and distribution. H.265/HEVC, the new video coding standard brings promise of huge bandwidth savings of approx. 40-45% over H.264 encoded content with similar quality. While H.265/HEVC can bring respite to content producers, aggregators, distributors and consumers with more quality content at same bitrate, the adoption is still far. Since H.265 supports only limited devices and is restricted to 4K/8K players, and new hardware devices (like HD TV, iPad, etc) will need time to support the new codec, it can't be wiser to convert H.265 to H.264 to stream videos or playback on any of your iDevice or android phones.
Encode H.265/HEVC to H.264
After figuring out the truth that many devices, media players and mobiles don't support HEVC playback so far and H.264 still dominates now, let's come to the guide on how to convert H.265/HEVC to H.264 which is compatible with wider range of products and devices at present.
There are many H.265/HEVC Decoder and Encoder in the market. But it is harder to get a perfect HEVC Converter. Here we sift best two H.265 to H.264 converters, Pavtube Video Converter and Handbrake, from market and gives detailed step-by-step guide on how to use this two programs to easily change H.265/HEVC to H.264 on Windows (10) or Mac (macOS High Sierra) with the best output effects.
Section 1: Convert H.265 to H.264 for Free with Handbrake
Handbrake is a famous free and open-source video encoder program mainly focusing on ripping regular DVDs or converting videos to MP4 or MKV container in H.264, H.265, MPEG-4, and MPEG-2 codec, and to some iPhone iPad preset profiles.
[Guide] Encode H.265 to H.264 for free with Handbrake
Step 1: Download Handbrake from its official website. Install and open it.
Step 2: Click Source button to load H.265/HEVC video file.
Step 3: Next click Browse button to set a target folder to store the converted H.264 video.
Step 4: Choose MP4 or MKV as the output video container.
Step 5: Then hit Video tab to select H.264 (x264) video codec as the output and adjust other video settings like frame rate, bit rate, etc.
Step 6: Hit Start button on the top left to start converting H.265/HEVC to H.264 with Handbrake on Windows or Mac.
Although Handbrake can encode H.265 to H.264 in its the latest update, it is very time-consuming cause that video encoding is CPU-taking but HandBrake doesn’t support NVIDIA NVENC, and it can’t support QSV very well. Besides, the interface and settings of Handbrake are complex and it is not suitable for new beginners. If you meet problems using Handbrake, turn to its best alternative - Pavtube Video Converter.
Section 2: Convert H.265/HEVC to H.264 using Pavtube Video Converter
Pavtube Video Converter is a powerful all-in-one video converter for Mac and Windows. It is a complete combination of video converter, video editor and video player. Many professionals recommend it due to its excellent features such as fast video conversion speed, various video conversion to SD/HD/3D/4K, extract MP3, FLAC, MKA, WMA, M4A, AAC, OGG audio files from H.265/HEVC video, trim vdeos, crop videos, apply effects and watermarks, etc.
[Guide] Steps to Convert H.265/HEVC to H.264 with Pavtube
Step 1: Load H.265 video files
Drag your files into this H.265 HEVC Video Converter, with "File"> ‘Add video’ you can load them with individual clips, or with ‘Add from folder’ you can import them with a complete folder. Batch conversion is also available.
Step 2: Convert your H.265 videos into H.264
Go to the format bar to choose "HD Video">"H.264 HD Video"(*.mp4)".
If you want to transcode H.264 to H.265, you can choose HD H.265 MP4 video or any other video formats.
Tips:
1. If you want to convert your H.265/HEVC videos into common formats like MP4, AVI, MKV, FLV, M4V, etc, click here for detailed workflow.
2. Since this codec will compress into smaller file size while maintain the HD quality, the converting progress will take much longer than H.264 or other common codecs.
3. "H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)" option will output your files as H.264 high profile, which will reduce the quality H.265/HEVC degradation to the least.
4. Or if you want to keep the most quality of your videos, keep the original parameters in the "Settings" UI is also available.
Edit H.265 HEVC video files – Optional
There are still some popular functional items we can take around on the main interface, for example, in the ‘Edit’ button, we have offered you the ‘Trim’ to decide the video length, ‘Crop’ to remove the unwanted edges, ‘Subtitles’ to add some extra explanations? More you can have a try here.
Step 3. Start H.265 to H.264 Conversion
Click Browse to specify a destination folder to save the converted video file. Hit "Convert" button to start to convert HEVC/H.265 to H.264/AVC on Windows or Mac with this high-class H.265 converter at lightning speed.
Even though H.265 is superior to H.264 based on demand, quality, size or compression rate, H.264 is much suitable for normal usage. By using Pavtube Video Converter to convert H.265 to H.264, you will have lots of options to watch videos and its time saving too.
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