Question / Help Lossless H.265?

The_Great_Sephiroth

The_Great_Sephiroth

Member
For whatever reason, I can only enable H.265 using advanced configuration for recording, and I cannot figure it out for streaming. YouTube has supported this for two years or so and it GREATLY reduces bandwidth requirements for streaming and lower file size when recording. It works fine on YouTube (Note 9 supports it and I stream with no issues from it even over 4G) and generally looks clearer. My RTX 2080 Ti supports it, but it refuses to show up under standard settings. The problem is that I do not know what my standard settings equate to on the advanced setup. I record in lossless, max quality, and high profile. This does not explain what bit-rates and such are set for this, or ffmpeg options.

I am set on moving to HEVC as it has been out since like, 2012 and is far superior to H.264, but how do I translate my standard settings to the custom output? Why in 2019 isn't H.265 an option for those with hardware support?
 
koala

koala

Active Member
Could you please link the corresponding article where it is documented that h.265 codec can be used for live streaming with Youtube? As far as I know, Youtube does not support any kind of live streaming with h.265.

It is said that Youtube silently supports h.265 for uploaded video (which is then recoded to some other codec), but live streaming - no. It's not realistic that Youtube will ever support this, because the licensing with h.265 says that the streaming service has to pay for every viewer.

Edit: the document you linked deals with uploaded video, not with live streaming.
 
T

TryHD

Member
koala said:
Could you please link the corresponding article where it is documented that h.265 codec can be used for live streaming with Youtube? As far as I know, Youtube does not support any kind of live streaming with h.265.

It is said that Youtube silently supports h.265 for uploaded video (which is then recoded to some other codec), but live streaming - no. It's not realistic that Youtube will ever support this, because the licensing with h.265 says that the streaming service has to pay for every viewer
Click to expand...
Youtube does support it, but it is a fucking nightmare to do. You need first to get your oauth2 token from the google dev console and than input HLS.
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/guides/hls-ingestion
So @The_Great_Sephiroth has no clue about what he talks there.
 
The_Great_Sephiroth

The_Great_Sephiroth

Member
Tell that to the Note 9. I have no issues streaming with HEVC from the YouTube app. I have never needed a token, just had to go through the hoops to get live streaming going. I can also record MP4/HEVC with it and upload it and it uploads just fine. So while I do not know some magical, apparently not required requirements, it works. I just want to do it from my PC now.

You still have not answered my initial question. You have simply thrown a fit about something that DOES work for me, and made claims that I need extra tokens and such which I have never needed. Buy me a second phone and I'll live-stream the first one live-streaming with HEVC.

*EDIT*

The article linked mentions using HLS. I never asked about a different method of content delivery. Even so, the article says H.265 is fine and even recommended due to it saving bandwidth. So again, what is the point of this article you linked?

Also, my question was primarily concerning recording. I did ask about streaming but it was secondary.
 
T

TryHD

Member
Ok short anwer: Never
AV1 is the next big thing and H265 has no future, so isn't worth the effort to do anything with it.
 
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The_Great_Sephiroth

The_Great_Sephiroth

Member
Maybe AV1 is out there also, but there are a TON of devices that boast H.265 support now. Capture devices, that is. Saying it has no future is like saying we won't have decent electric cars in the future. Sure, they don't go very far now and that range is generally reduced by everything you use (radio, heater, etc) but one day we'll have battery tech beyond what we do now. H.265 has been around for a while and the lone fact that it is now on both Android and iPhone devices says volumes about why it is not going away.

Again, I asked for the equivalent settings to do lossless, max quality when being forced to use the advanced ffmpeg options. My Linux software generally has front-ends to it in KDE so I have never had to learn the very large and complex arguments to it. Obviously I am streaming and/or recording from Windows, but I am not sure if that changes anything. Either way, I want to try the lossless, max quality, high profile settings on H.265 and see if my recordings improve on YouTube. There is a VERY clear quality improvement on my phone when I shoot the same video with HEVC on and off.

*EDIT*

Because you mentioned it, I blew an hour reading up on AV1. Apparently it is nowhere near release ready and apparently is tuned for OTT, not broadcast. It looks like it will reduce bandwidth/size by about 30% over HEVC, but it is much more complex and requires more processing power. Not an issue if you own a Threadripper or nice Xeon, I suppose. Also, HEVC already has widespread use and is the market leader. On top of that, a LOT of hardware supports HEVC. AV1 is not very well supported yet and a lot of articles on the matter state that since the codec is not complete yet the format may change, so adoption is slow.

The big reason I see to go to AV1 once it is stable, is that it is royalty free where HEVC is not. This is likely why YouTube doesn't advertise support for it widely and also likely why other video services do not adopt it. However, Netflix and others ARE using HEVC to save bandwidth, so it must be worth something if the bandwidth saved is equal to or more than the expense paid on royalties.
 
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T

TryHD

Member
Ok maybe we should split between livestreaming and VOD because you constantly throw them together.
H265 never was relevant for livestreaming and never will be. So it will never be a standart option for it in OBS.
For recording H265 can already be used via ffmpeg output so there will be no change to that in the future too.
Your phone doesn't use H265 for livestreaming, acutally I even doubt that YOU can at all livestream with your phone via the youtube app because you need 1000 subs before it is enabled. For recording sure, because that is done hardware accelerated.
So to conclude, there will be no changes to OBS. If you want that do it yourself or pay somebody to do it for you and do a pull request.
AV1 will get traction for livestreaming as soon as there are Hardware encoders on mainstream GPUs with for it and that will be end 2020 or begin of 2021. Till that there will be no shift away from H264 to anything for livestreaming.
 
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