Which codec should I record my camera footage in?

If your camera and card can sustain it, H.265 gives noticeably smaller files at the same quality, which matters most for 4K and higher-frame-rate footage where card space and card write speed are real constraints. If your editing computer struggles to scrub H.265 smoothly, H.264 is still a perfectly reasonable recording choice, or you can proxy-edit.

Which codec should I export for YouTube or social platforms?

H.264 remains the safer universal export choice: nearly every platform, browser, and device decodes it without issue. Most platforms transcode your upload anyway, so exporting in H.265 rarely gains you anything on the delivery side and can occasionally cause upload or compatibility hiccups.

Does H.265 always look better than H.264 at the same file size?

Generally yes, especially at 4K and above. H.265 was specifically designed to roughly halve file size versus H.264 at equivalent visual quality. The tradeoff is that H.265 encoding and decoding both demand more processing power, which can mean slower exports and choppier playback on older hardware.

Comparison

H.264 vs. H.265

H.265 (HEVC) is the newer, more efficient codec, but "newer and smaller" doesn't automatically mean "use it everywhere." Here's the real tradeoff for recording versus delivery.

Category	H.264	H.265 / HEVC
Compression efficiency	Good	Roughly 40-50% smaller at equivalent quality
Compatibility	Universal, every platform and device decodes it	Widely supported, but occasional gaps on older hardware/software
Encoding speed	Faster, lower CPU/GPU demand	Slower, higher processing demand
Playback/scrubbing	Smooth on most computers, even older ones	Can stutter on underpowered machines without hardware decode
Best for recording	Older cameras, cards, or edit machines	4K/high-frame-rate capture where card space matters
Best for delivery	YouTube, social platforms, general sharing	Archival masters, storage-constrained delivery

H.264, Strengths

Decodes smoothly on virtually any device, old or new
Faster to encode and export
The safest choice when you don't know your viewer's device

H.265, Strengths

Roughly half the file size at the same visual quality
Better fit for 4K and higher-frame-rate footage on limited storage
Increasingly well hardware-accelerated on recent phones and computers

The Verdict

Choose H.265 for original camera recording when your card space or storage budget is tight, especially at 4K or higher frame rates, and your camera/editor can handle it smoothly.

Choose H.264 for final delivery to YouTube, social platforms, or any audience where you don't control the playback device: it remains the more universally compatible choice, and most platforms re-encode your upload anyway.

Many creators end up using both: recording in H.265 to save card space, then exporting the final cut in H.264 for maximum compatibility on delivery.

Work out your exact recording storage needs with the Recording Storage Calculator, or get the right export bitrate for your platform with the Video Export Bitrate Calculator. For the full picture on delivery specs across every platform, see Platform Video Specs Reference.

Which one to actually use

Split the decision by stage. For delivery to a platform, H.264 remains the safe default, because everything decodes it and the platform re-encodes your upload anyway, so the efficiency you gain is discarded within minutes of arriving. For storage and archiving, H.265 is the better choice, because the file is kept rather than re-encoded and roughly half the size compounds across a library.

For recording in camera, the constraint is usually what your computer can edit. H.265 is considerably more demanding to decode, and a machine that plays H.264 smoothly can stutter badly on the same footage in H.265. Proxy workflows solve this, at the cost of a step you have to remember to do.

Hardware decoding is the detail that decides the experience. A computer with dedicated H.265 decoding handles it effortlessly, and one without it falls back to the processor and struggles. This varies by chip generation rather than by how new or expensive the machine is, which is why two people with similar computers report completely different results.

Licensing is the reason adoption has been slower than the technical merits suggest. H.265 patent licensing is more complicated and more expensive for device makers than H.264, which is why some browsers and applications have been reluctant to support it and why newer royalty-free codecs exist at all.

For most people making video for the internet, this decision matters less than it appears to. Shooting whatever your camera does well, editing in whatever your computer handles smoothly, and delivering H.264 at the platform's recommended settings is a defensible answer that will not be the reason a video underperforms.

Vocabulary

Codec. The method used to compress and decompress video. Determines file size and how much work playback requires, and is distinct from the container such as MP4 that holds the result.

HEVC. High Efficiency Video Coding, the formal name for H.265. Achieves roughly similar quality to H.264 at around half the data rate, in exchange for substantially more processing during both encoding and decoding.

Hardware decoding. Playback handled by dedicated circuitry in a processor or graphics chip rather than by general computation. Present for H.264 almost everywhere and for H.265 only on newer hardware, which is why performance varies so widely.

Proxy workflow. Editing with smaller, easier to decode copies of your footage and relinking to the originals before export. The standard answer to footage a computer cannot play smoothly.