H.264 vs H.265

[Neville Bailey]

I have installed 3 Hikvision IP cameras and they work perfectly on SS, set up with H.264 and smart event detection.

I read that H.265 saves storage space, so I changed my settings from H.264 to H.265, with all other settings unchanged.

However, I don't see any storage savings at all - it seems no different to H.264.

What am I missing?

 

[WST16]

I'd test by setting one of the cameras to 264 and the other to 265 and compare over a period of three to five days.

 

[Neville Bailey]

Problem solved! I've adjusted the bitrate setting for each camera from Variable to Constant with a maximum value of 2048, with no discernible drop in image quality. The file sizes are now about one third of what they were before.

 

[WST16]

That's great. If you're going to use CBR (at 2048), you might as well try VBR with a max rate set to 2048. This way you'll cap it while allowing it to (maybe) go lower resulting in additional savings.

What I understand about VBR is that it varies the bit rate according to the scene. So if the scene is kind of static (or not complex) it lowers the encoding bits resulting in less storage and bandwidth utilization.
Generally, VBR tends to be the recommended default. But if you're happy with the results you have with CBR, why not.

You might find these charts useful:

Hikvision Bitrate Chart All Max Bitrates

Hikvision Camera Bitrate charts. Need more help? If you need help with anything else please check out our other guides or get in contact.

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