AV1 is royalty free and better!

Real example, I recorded the world series using an ATSC antenna, and I re-encoded a 90 second sample using a bunch of different settings on a 32-thread znver5:

  # Codec        Flags                     Size         Speed
  - -----        -----                     ----         -----
    Original     (Raw ATSC mpeg2video)     77MB (100%)  N/A
  1 libx265      -preset slower -crf 24    37MB  (48%)  0.245x
  2 libsvtav1    -preset 3 -crf 44         36MB  (25%)  1.87x
  3 libsvtav1    -preset 1 -crf 35         19MB  (25%)  0.556x

(1) and (2) are completely indistinguishable from the original unless I go frame by frame looking for transient motion artifacts. (3) is only distinguishable in one shot where a dark background was washed out. Not only does AV1 produce results just as good as H265, it encodes quite a bit faster for the same size/quality.

That said, I've watched so much h264-encoded video over the past decade I think I've been trained to perceive the subtle visual "snow noise" as a sign of a high quality video: I find how AV1 blends backgrounds more visually objectionable than the dithering in H265, even though I think it's objectively higher fidelity. Similar to how I find high frame rate video "fake" after having watched NTSC TV for the first half of my life.

These were the CRFs necessary to get the same visual quality with libx265 at faster presets and the resulting sizes:

  hevc-slower-24          37MB (used above)
  hevc-slow-21            56MB
  hevc-medium-20          57MB
  hevc-faster-19          52MB
  hevc-veryfast-18        60MB

you used to be able to get it for free on windows[0] but it seems that might not be available anymore.

Of course there is always VLC

0: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n4wgh0z6vhq

> having to pay $.99 to play h265 video in Window

what?