H.265 (HEVC) / AV1 — Next-Generation Codecs

What is it?

H.265 (also called HEVC) and AV1 are the newer generations of video compression. Their promise is simple: the same picture quality using roughly half the data compared to H.264. Less data means lower bandwidth bills, smoother playback on weak connections, and 4K becoming practical.

• H.265/HEVC: the older of the two "new" codecs; great compression but tangled in licensing fees, so adoption is uneven.
• AV1: royalty-free and backed by Google, Netflix, Amazon and others — the industry's chosen long-term direction, now appearing in new phones and platforms.

Practical example

YouTube serves the same 4K video to two viewers: one device gets the AV1 version and consumes noticeably less data for an identical-looking picture; an older device falls back to H.264. Netflix similarly streams AV1 to supported TVs to cut bandwidth on its most-watched titles.

Key things to know (non-technical)

• Better compression = direct cost savings on CDN bandwidth — the biggest bill of a video platform.
• The catch: older devices can't play them, and encoding them takes more computing power.
• Real-world strategy is always hybrid: new codecs for capable devices, H.264 fallback for everyone else.
• AV1 is the one to watch — royalty-free and increasingly supported in phone chips.

In Tupic Live

For Tupic Live, AV1/HEVC are a future cost lever, not a launch requirement: start with H.264, then add AV1 delivery for supported devices to cut CDN costs as the audience grows.