Video codecs explained: H.264 vs H.265

You want the cleanest picture your mobile data can carry. That comes down to your codec, what squeezes your video down so it can travel over the connection you have. Here is what H.264 and H.265 are, in plain English, and how to pick the right one in Super Simple IRL.

What a codec does

A codec compresses your video so it can be sent over the internet, then decompresses it again at the other end. Raw video is far too heavy to stream as is, so the codec does the work of shrinking it down to fit the connection you have.

The better a codec compresses, the more quality you keep for the same amount of data. That is the whole game, and it is why the codec you choose matters when you are out on mobile data.

H.264, the universal one

H.264, also called AVC, is the long-standing standard. Every phone that can encode video can encode H.264, and every device that plays video can play it. It is the option that is always available.

It is reliable and safe, and that is exactly its appeal. The only downside is that it is less efficient than newer codecs, so it needs a bit more data to reach the same quality.

H.265, the efficient one

H.265, also called HEVC, is the newer option. It delivers roughly the same quality at a lower bitrate (bitrate is the amount of video data your stream sends each second), which makes it great for saving mobile data or getting a cleaner picture at the same bitrate you were already using.

The catch is the phone, not the internet. Compressing to H.265 is more work, so it needs a hardware encoder to do it without heating up or falling behind. Most phones from the last few years have one. Some budget and older handsets do not.

Your platform’s codec support is not the question

This is where most codec advice sends you wrong, because it was written for people pointing an encoder straight at Twitch. You are not doing that.

Your phone sends to SSIRL’s managed cloud. The cloud takes your stream in, composites your scenes and overlays onto it, and sends the finished result on to Twitch, YouTube, or Kick in whatever format that platform expects. So whether your platform accepts H.265 for ingest is our problem, not yours. Nothing you pick on the phone can hand your platform a stream it cannot read.

What your choice does change is the hardest hop in the chain: your phone to our cloud, over mobile data, while you move. That hop is where every drop and stutter comes from, and it is the one a more efficient codec makes easier.

Which to pick for IRL

• H.265 for more quality out of every megabit you send, which is what you want on mobile data.
• H.264 if your phone cannot encode H.265 in hardware, or if you would rather keep the encoder working as lightly as possible.

Choosing it in the app

Super Simple IRL uses H.265 by default and falls back to H.264 by itself when your phone cannot hardware-encode it, so you can leave this alone entirely. If you want to set it by hand, the choice is in Advanced settings.

• Stay on H.265 for the efficiency, especially if you are watching your data.
• Switch to H.264 if you would rather ask less of an older phone.

To understand how the codec ties into the numbers you set, see what is bitrate.

Frequently asked questions