Why x265? x265 is a library for encoding video into High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC / H.265) video compression format. While developed as a replacement for H.264, due to early performance and licensing issues, it didn’t gain much traction, especially as a streaming format. While most devices now support HEVC in some form or another, adoption didn’t really kick off. Despite these downfalls, HEVC does compress much better in higher crf (lower bitrate) and has been a good codec to use since 2018. Most modern devices support hardware decoding (iOS, Android, laptops, Macs, etc.), and even at 1080p most older consumer PCs should be able to software decode just fine.