

For example, you might use the ffmpeg command to encode a video. But since you specifically said you dont care about real time, the answer is yes. So if that is the case, and you re-encode it, you may not see much of a difference other than generation loss. The only limitations to this (and the only thing that would make this question Pi specific) is if it can do it in real time or not and if it has hardware to accelerate that. The output from mediainfo may indicate the actual encoder. I'm not sure which encoder was used, but it could indicate that x265–an efficient encoder–could have been used. This library is responsible for muxing the file. Your H.265 input was created by ffmpegĪs shown in your console output: encoder: Lavf58.34.101, which is the libavformat library version. So if you take a H.264 input that was made from an inefficient encoder, then re-encode it using an efficient H.265 encoder you may see significant file savings despite compression unfriendly encoding artifacts present in the source. Your H.264 input may have been created by a hardware encoder which sacrifices quality-per-bit for encoding speed. Some encoders are crap no matter the format.

So it may be unfair and unrealistic to compare H.264 to H.265.

H.265 is a newer generation format than H.264, and in ideal situations H.265 can provide significant file size savings (but it can be much slower to encode).
