Zoom in x200
Left: 720p x264 --> 0.25 GB
Right: 1080p x265 --> 1.11 GB
I tested watching both on my phone:
- Without zoom, I didn’t notice much difference in visuals.
- The audio is stronger at the same level on the x265 version.
- I need +15 volume level (Android) to make the x264 sound equal.
What do you think, guys? Is it worth 4 times the file size?
The biggest issue with downloading x265 stuff from the high seas is that so many of them are just x264 that's been re-encoded in x265, resulting in smaller file sizes but reduced quality as well. x265 is superior in almost every way technically speaking but it needs a good source material, not an x264 reencode. Their "golden rule" is more like a rule of thumb and I absolutely wouldn't use some blanket criteria like resolution or dynamic range.
What would you say the source size shoukd be to make a decent x265? I sometimes encode on my own and I always use the best version I can find. However, sometimes some rare version arw only on certain streaming services with size approx of 20gigs (a movie of course). Is it good practice to make x265 out of 20gigs AVC if no better source is available? I usually try to make 5gigs result
It really depends on how it was originally encded to x264 and what your goals for transcoding are in the first place (save space, playback compatibility, etc etc). there's a pretty good little post on stackexchange that goes into more detail about the ffmpeg flags.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/248711