FFmpeg and H.265 Encoding Guide

The goal of this guide is to inform new users how to create a high-quality H.265 video using the encoder x265.

Passing options to libx265

The encoding is done by libx265, which is under heavy development. As of now, options such as crf or psy-rd has to be passed using the (​undocumented) -x265-params options.

Simple example (crf)

ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx265 -preset medium -x265-params crf=20 -c:a copy output