Tuning Up Your H.264 and HEVC Streams

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Dan Rayburn recently published the video and slides from my NAB Streaming Summit session, where I walked through real-world techniques to optimize x264 and x265 for quality and efficiency. No AI, no codecs from 2030, just practical optimizations that work today.

If You’re Still Encoding with x264 and x265—Good

You don’t need to jump to AV1 or VVC to get results. For most publishers, H.264 and HEVC still carry the bulk of traffic, especially on mobile, set-top boxes, and connected TVs. But too many of those streams are leaving efficiency and quality on the table.

The Most Impactful Change? Per-Title Encoding

If you’re not already using per-title or content-adaptive encoding, start there. It consistently delivers the biggest bandwidth savings without degrading quality. Everything else on the checklist builds on that.

If you’re already doing per-title, or not quite ready for it—there’s still a lot you can fix.

Download the Checklists

I’ve broken the tuning guidance into two targeted checklists, one for each codec. They cover:

• GOP structure and segment alignment

• Rate control: 2-pass VBR, capped CRF, and when to use CBR

• Preset strategy based on volume and delivery economics

• Low-rung scaling tweaks that boost VMAF with zero extra cost

• Threading, QA traps, and cloud config tuning

Download the optimize x264 checklist here: x264-Optimization-Checklist.pdf (2798 downloads )

Download the optimize x265 checklist here: x265-Optimization-Checklist.pdf (2733 downloads )

These aren’t lab settings or encoder defaults. As you can see from the handout, these are all testing-based recommendations produced using FFmpeg, x264, x265, and VMAF. If you’re encoding at scale, or just trying to make older codecs go farther, this is how you do it.

Ready to Optimize Your Encoding Workflow?

I consult with organizations to help them improve their H.264 and HEVC encoding configurations. This can range from a quick review of existing settings to a more in-depth, testing-based optimization.

Not sure what kind of help you need? Begin with a complimentary 30-minute discovery call to assess your current approach and pinpoint the most valuable areas for improvement.

Send a note to jan.ozer@streaminglearningcenter.com to get started.