How to Transcode and Convert H264 to HEVC (H265) with Top Quality & Max Speed
Step 1: Launch this HEVC Video Converter
Fire up this H264 to H265 transcoder on your Mac or Windows PC after you free download this x265 converter on Mac or Windows version on MacXDVD official website or the legal and safe software download websites like softonic, filehippo, macupdate, etc.
Step 2: Import H264 x264 Video
Click "Video" button and you can add h264 video files. Or just drag and drop x264 files into this H265 video converter. Batch video conversion is supported.
Step 3: Choose HEVC MP4 or HEVC MKV Format
Select the output video format on the pop-up window. You can choose MP4 video (HEVC) from "Mac General Video" profile or MKV video (HEVC) from "PC General Video" category. Generally, the preset output profile keeps the same resolution, frame rate, aspec ratio and audio codec with the input h264 file settings. If you need to upscale 1080p to 4K 2160p or lower resolution from 4K to 1080p/720p, tap settings icon
to customize your output H265 resolution, frame rate, etc.
If you only have several H264 MKV files needed to be converted to H265 with medium video length (be it 30 mins to 1 hour), you actually don't mind time too much. What if your H264 video resource is up to 8 or 10 GB and requires about 10-14 hours conversion time? Well, I bet the H264 to H265 conversion speed matters a lot to you, since no one tends to spend almost half of a day on the video conversion. To improve H264 video conversion speed, follow the below tips:
Tips to improve H264 to H265 conversion speed:
1. Shift your attention to the lower right corner of the main interface, where hardware encoder, High Quality Engine, De-interlacing, Auto Copy and Merge are displayed. If your computer supports Intel Quick Sync Video hardware acceleration, then the option
is ticked. If not, resort to another computer with Intel QSV supported.
2. As for multi-core CPU utility, click "Options" at the top toolbar, on which you can find "CPU Core Use" and freely select how many cores you wanna use to convert x264 H264 to x265 H265. Generally, the default setting is the maximum number.
3. Tap the mark icon next to "Auto Copy" and you will know what Auto Copy means. This is mainly used for you to 100% losslessly copy video audio file data from one container format to another new without decoding or re-encoding, like remux MKV H264 to MP4 H264, F4V (H264) to iPhone X (H264). This will offer you world's fastest speed, even 10X faster than Intel QSV hardware accelerated video conversion. Here Auto Copy can't be used to convert H264 to H265, for it involves video codec transcoding. You can try it for the same video codec remux next time.
Tip to improve output H265 quality:
Mannually tick "Use High Quality Engine" and "Deinterlacing" to improve output video quality. Of course, this conduct will affect your x264 to x265 (H265) conversion speed to certain extent. After all, quality and speed are negatively related.
Step 4: Start to Convert H264 x264 to HEVC x265
Hit "RUN" button and it will begin to convert H264 to H265 with Intel QSV hardware accelerated speed, along with mutli-core CPU (up to 8) and hyper-threading tech. A video conversion window will pop up to show you the copy processing, the FPS, time remaining, etc. The same applies to convert H265 to H264 on PC.