Ask HN: Should I convert all H.264 into H.265 for disk space? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should I convert all H.264 into H.265 for disk space?

Some of my phones do not record H.265. Those do record H.265 like Xiaomi or so provide an option to share as H.264 for compatiblility.

But the advantage of H.265 in terms of disk space is massive so I want that.

But I am afraid of availablilty and performance that made me unable to play those on some computers or future phones and tablets.

What's your idea?

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> Should I convert all H.264 into H.265 for disk space?

Not all of them but, geez, the space saving... I recently did just that: not every single one of them because I didn't want quality loss on a few specific ones but I had so many files with extensions I don't even the format behind (like .MVI, .MOV) that were just huge. When I mean huge: stuff re-encoded to H.265 and still looking perfectly fine at 1/15th the size! (I think the original files came from some portable video "camcorder", but already digital).

So I wrote a little Bash shell script doing conversion to H.265 (using the x265 codec).

I mean, seriously: family vids / videos filmed with phones aren't going to be used as source material for the next Barbie blockbusters in 8K (or whatever).

I'm not a pro and it's really OK if I take a tiny quality loss on most of these files.

And it doesn't have to be on all the files: I tag a few family videos as "favorites" and these I didn't convert to H.265.

Now even on a 7700X and all cores working at full speed, it takes quite a while: depending on the source format some re-encode super fast (like 12x the speed) while other only re-encode at 2x the speed.

So I just let the script work overnight.

Recompressing an already lossily compressed file is almost guaranteed to produce information loss, whereas storage media is getting cheaper and cheaper over time. An 18TB hard disk is now within the budget of many people, and they're likely to get cheaper still.

So if your purpose is to archive these files because they're worth keeping, buying a bigger disk may make even more sense.

I don't consider hardisk now although I have tons of them. I keep multiple copies of those files but it is a pain in the ass to distribute the same backup to different disks simply because their R/W rate is too slow. After transfering files, I run validation program to make sure they are all right. These processes take me a week or so. And I have to do this regularly to ensure errors do not accumulate through time. Therefore now I want SSD but the price is still 4X of HDD per TB.

Slight degradation in quality is not my concern, since ultimately I use realtime upscaling tools to watch them. But I don't know how exactly H.265 affects the quality of a video.

By making the file smaller, I can 1) distribute to other disk faster, 2) validate correctness faster, 3) set a higher redundant rate because now I have more free space.

But the problem is will H.265 become obsolete before it becomes infrastructure. You know AV1 is a better algorithm and companies are pushing it.

Or H.265 is not available in the future due to I don't know royalty issue or something like that?

No. Make new videos in h265 if you desire but don't throw away more quality and waste time doing it on videos you already have.

In my experience it may be worth archiving the 264's to multiple cheap storage devices if that is an option. Why? A time passes there are improvements to tools/libraries like ffmpeg and every {n} years I have found that re-encoding a file from its original source to 265 improves. Errors/flaws in the source file are handled better, less content is lost and the end result improves as ffmpeg and related tools evolve. This is only useful to know if you have an abundance of storage to keep your older files around and care about such things. I understand that many people do not.

[Edit] I forgot to add this methodology is also useful if the videos were downloaded from a platform like YT. Future versions of libraries can handle stripping out proprietary meta-data and other garbage from files that was intended for their JS players but useless for archival and local playing purposes.

Personally, I'd only convert something if it's "important" (you want to share it frequently etc)

Chuck everything you no longer need/want (either delete, or push it to cheap storage somewhere)

Convert the one's you don't need any more for sure (the ones in the data graveyard)

265 will be standard in a few years. Or so.

Why "Convert the one's you don't need any more for sure (the ones in the data graveyard)"?

Why not "delete the ones you don't need anymore"?

Because OG wants to know whether converting or not for space saving reasons. The question hasn't been set-up like "should I keep all my 264 Videos or delete them for space saving?"

It's "space saving" to delete what you don't need ... converting unneeded items seems a foolhardy adventure - you're spending time on something you're not going to use

Yes you're absolutely right from your point of view. If it's not needed, delete it. I think op is looking for a solution for a personal memory archive. So deleting he wants to keep is the last solution, I guess. Or, datamessi is a datamessi and will stay a datamessi.

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