Transcoding
Video Transcoding
Converting video from one codec or format to another, often for compatibility or size reduction.
Technical Detail
Video transcoding relies on temporal and spatial redundancy. Intra-frame compression (I-frames) encodes complete images, while inter-frame compression (P-frames, B-frames) stores only the differences between frames. H.264/AVC remains the most compatible codec. H.265/HEVC achieves ~40% better compression but has patent licensing costs. VP9 (royalty-free, Google) and AV1 (royalty-free, Alliance for Open Media) offer similar or better compression. AV1 encoding is ~10x slower than H.264 but decoding is efficient on modern hardware.
Example
``` Video codec comparison (1080p, 1 minute): H.264 (AVC): ~15 MB @ 2 Mbps — universal support H.265 (HEVC): ~10 MB @ 1.5 Mbps — 40% smaller, patent costs VP9: ~10 MB @ 1.5 Mbps — royalty-free (Google) AV1: ~8 MB @ 1 Mbps — royalty-free, best quality Encoding speed: H.264 > VP9 > H.265 >> AV1 (10x slower) ```
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