I've never had the choice before.  I've web searched this and H.265 seems to be the way to go.  I added a Microsoft Windows 10 free add-on that will allow my desktop computer to play those files.  What are your thoughts my expert cohorts???

H.265 retains a lot more detail but I suggest you take some sample footage and see how you (and your computer) get on with editing it in post. If you record in 4k60 or 1080p240 it will only record in H.265 so be mindful of that. The files will be much larger so ensure your micro SD card is to up to the task too.

We should be allowed the choice, regardless of how much detail difference there may be.

A J Posted at 6-12 12:51
H.265 retains a lot more detail but I suggest you take some sample footage and see how you (and your computer) get on with editing it in post. If you record in 4k60 or 1080p240 it will only record in H.265 so be mindful of that. The files will be much larger so ensure your micro SD card is to up to the task too.

A J,

It is not true that H.265 retains more details.

H.265 has a capability to provide higher quality video with the same bitrate speed.It was designed for video streaming due and has higher comperssion rate.


Both H.264 and H.265 will encode the file with about the same quality.

File encoded in H.264 will have higher size due to less compression.
One can argue that less compression equals higher quality. Thus H.264 would be a winner.
However, this is not the case here due to better compression algorithms of H.265.

In other words, H.265 will provide smaller file size as compared to H.264 but with about the same quality.

Mirek

Mirek L Posted at 6-12 13:50
A J,

It is not true that H.265 retains more details.

Mirek, apparently you know much about all things related and you're willing to share. Please stay with this forum as long as you can, educating new generations of droners. I'm slowly fading into retirement and away ...

Mirek L Posted at 6-12 13:50
A J,

It is not true that H.265 retains more details.

Good to know - so when you say 'higher video quality' how are you defining quality?

Northwood Posted at 6-12 13:02
We should be allowed the choice, regardless of how much detail difference there may be.

Would be nice to have both options across all frame rates but aparantly it's not more detail its higher quality.

When you consider that the Mavic Air 2 tops out at 120 Mbps for both H.264 and H.265, and that H.265 can utilize the available bandwidth more efficiently, it follows that H.265 can include more detail and thus provides more quality.

I would argue that you should always record in H.265 even if your computer struggles to work with it in realtime. You can always transcode to a codec that is easier to edit, but the acquisition should always capture the most detail possible.

MisterFrag Posted at 6-12 15:32
When you consider that the Mavic Air 2 tops out at 120 Mbps for both H.264 and H.265, and that H.265 can utilize the available bandwidth more efficiently, it follows that H.265 can include more detail and thus provides more quality.

I would argue that you should always record in H.265 even if your computer struggles to work with it in realtime. You can always transcode to a codec that is easier to edit, but the acquisition should always capture the most detail possible.

Ah, now that conflicts what Mirek stated when he said "it is not true that H.265 retains more details" and now you're saying that it does in line with professional videographers like Philip Bloom who have also said the same as you. Is quality and detail the same thing when defining H.265?   

Detail is just one aspect of quality. You can’t have the latter without the former.

MisterFrag Posted at 6-12 19:40
Detail is just one aspect of quality. You can’t have the latter without the former.

Cool - thought so. Many thanks for clarifying.

A J Posted at 6-12 15:45
Ah, now that conflicts what Mirek stated when he said "it is not true that H.265 retains more details" and now you're saying that it does in line with professional videographers like Philip Bloom who have also said the same as you. Is quality and detail the same thing when defining H.265?

Mirek is correct, technically H265 doesn't offer any more quality in terms of retained data and details over the H264 codec.  What is does is retain exactly the same detail for upto 50% less storage.  Upside is obviously less storage required, downside is you need a lot more CPU and or GPU compute to playback and post edit - the latter is especially a downside is you haven't got a recent i7 CPU for example.  So if you don't take any other physical limitations into account e.g. max bitrates then the two codecs retain exactly the same detail.

However the bitrate element can be relevent when it becomes a limiting factor but that all depends on how your camera utilises bitrate, this is why H265 is specifically only available as an option with certain modes e.g. 4k60 (is not h264 available).  So say you are shooting 4k30 at max 120mbps bitrate with h264.  If you switch to 4k60 h264 with twice as many frames and yet remain limited by the same max bitrate, each frame will have to be compressed by 50%  to stay within the physical write limitations.  To avoid that compression if you switch to h265 you can reduce the frame compression needed significantly and still operate within the 120mbps max speeds.  So you are not loosing as much frame quality by increasing FPS.

Andy Uk Posted at 6-13 03:23
Mirek is correct, technically H265 doesn't offer any more quality in terms of retained data and details over the H264 codec.  What is does is retain exactly the same detail for upto 50% less storage.  Upside is obviously less storage required, downside is you need a lot more CPU and or GPU compute to playback and post edit - the latter is especially a downside is you haven't got a recent i7 CPU for example.  So if you don't take any other physical limitations into account e.g. max bitrates then the two codecs retain exactly the same detail.

However the bitrate element can be relevent when it becomes a limiting factor but that all depends on how your camera utilises bitrate, this is why H265 is specifically only available as an option with certain modes e.g. 4k60 (is not h264 available).  So say you are shooting 4k30 at max 120mbps bitrate with h264.  If you switch to 4k60 h264 with twice as many frames and yet remain limited by the same max bitrate, each frame will have to be compressed by 50%  to stay within the physical write limitations.  To avoid that compression if you switch to h265 you can reduce the frame compression needed significantly and still operate within the 120mbps max speeds.  So you are not loosing as much frame quality by increasing FPS.

That makes perfect sense and explains why my older MacBook can't handle it - you are a fountain of knowledge Sir.

Doubling the framerate doesn’t double the bandwidth requirements except in extreme cases that simply don’t occur with drone video.

Video is encoded as groups of pictures (GOPs) consisting of an I-frame (an independent frame) followed by a series of P-frames (predictive frames) and B-frames (bi-directional frames). Only the I-frames are complete images, the other frame type encode the changes from the previous frame. If you double the temporal resolution by doubling the framerate, the amount of changes from one frame to the next goes down, and the P and B frames contain less data. I haven’t done a bitrate comparison with the MA2 to see how frame rate affects its encoder, but you can bet that at the extreme end, 1080/240p isn’t going to use eight times as much bandwidth at 1080/30p.

Also worth noting is that H.265 has algorithms for detecting and encoding motion that H.264 does not. So if large portions of the image shift position but remain otherwise static, it can encode that much more  efficiently.

Andy Uk Posted at 6-13 03:23
Mirek is correct, technically H265 doesn't offer any more quality in terms of retained data and details over the H264 codec.  What is does is retain exactly the same detail for upto 50% less storage.  Upside is obviously less storage required, downside is you need a lot more CPU and or GPU compute to playback and post edit - the latter is especially a downside is you haven't got a recent i7 CPU for example.  So if you don't take any other physical limitations into account e.g. max bitrates then the two codecs retain exactly the same detail.

However the bitrate element can be relevent when it becomes a limiting factor but that all depends on how your camera utilises bitrate, this is why H265 is specifically only available as an option with certain modes e.g. 4k60 (is not h264 available).  So say you are shooting 4k30 at max 120mbps bitrate with h264.  If you switch to 4k60 h264 with twice as many frames and yet remain limited by the same max bitrate, each frame will have to be compressed by 50%  to stay within the physical write limitations.  To avoid that compression if you switch to h265 you can reduce the frame compression needed significantly and still operate within the 120mbps max speeds.  So you are not loosing as much frame quality by increasing FPS.

Andy UK, A J, Mister Frag,

  

I thrive on good discussion like that. It expands everybody’s knowledge.

Good points from everyone.

  

Andy UK said something which stopped me in my tracks: “the bitrate element can be relevant when it becomes a limiting factor but that all depends on how your camera utilises bitrate”

  

We know advantages and disadvantages of technology (H.264 versus H.265) but we do not know how DJI implemented how they encode data coming from their sensor. Nor will they tell us. And this knowledge is crucial to understand if H.265 video files produced by MA2 will have the same or higher quality than H.264 encoded files.

  

There are two possibilities here:

1. Use the same bitrate for encoding H.264 and H.265 (same file size, higher quality with H.265).

2. Use the same quality for encoding H.264 and H.265 (smaller file size for H.265).

  

With video editing software, you can choose the rendering bitrate and codec. With DJI MA2 you can choose only codec so the rendering bitrate which DJI uses is unknown and can only be found out by experiment.

  

This morning I did a quick experiment which I fully intend to expand on later, when I have more time.

  

I took my MA2 and recorded two short videos with the identical settings (4k/30fps, D-Cinelike). First one was recorded using H.264 codec and the second using H.265 codec.

Both videos were exactly 1 minute long and both recorded in the same environment where I was holding MA2 in my hand and moving it back and forth in front of the textured surface (if it was stationary with non-moving objects, codec would have nothing to optimize and results from H.264 and H.265 would have been hard to compare – codecs would not have been exercised to the their best abilities).

  

I than compared size (bitrate) of both recordings.

And the winner is… not me ☹.

  

As it turns out, DJI implemented algorithm using the same bitrate for H.264 and H.265 recording. Both files I recorded had an average bitrate of just over 100 Mb/s which also means that size of both files was very close. H.265 file was about 1% smaller than H.264. However, knowing that H.265 compression efficiency is up to 50% better than H.264, I must conclude, that H.265 file contained more information than H.264 (video was of higher quality).  

  

Mirek

We should still have the choice.

You do understand that with the MA2 it is selectable, right?  You can select either H.264 or H.265 in the Menu, Camera (Video) options.

A J Posted at 6-12 15:11
Would be nice to have both options across all frame rates but aparantly it's not more detail its higher quality.

Which means: More details.
;-)
The problem here is really the post production, methinks
Many, who using a computer, notebook "aside the other things"  for video editing too, will assumingly be reminded on the "good old times", when SD changed to HD but the computer wasn't old enough to upgrade.

Rustic17 Posted at 6-13 23:17
You do understand that with the MA2 it is selectable, right?  You can select either H.264 or H.265 in the Menu, Camera (Video) options.

Not with 4K60 or 1080p240 - with those frame rates selected on the MA2 your only option is H.265 but now we know why thanks to the great advice given throughout your thread from all.

Mirek L Posted at 6-13 06:56
Andy UK, A J, Mister Frag,  
I thrive on good discussion like that. It expands everybody’s knowledge.Good points from everyone.  
Andy UK said something which stopped me in my tracks: “the bitrate element can be relevant when it becomes a limiting factor but that all depends on how your camera utilises bitrate”  

Thanks for taking the time to test it Mirek and sharing your findings - may be it's time I upgraded my computer

I found it difficult to work in post production with h265 .. many programs do not work well even with powerful machines .. the only easy program that goes immediately well is magix production

What other software have you tried for editing? All NLEs support proxy mode editing, reduced resolution editing of the original material, or at the very least allow transcoding to a less demanding format.

Thanks for all the inputs/replies/great information!!!

One more thing about H.265 files.I just found out yesterday that they cannot be downloaded from AC to mobile. Only H.264 is supported by DJI for download.
Why would I want to download them to mobile instead of my PC? Becasue something happened to my SD card and my PC cannot read it anymore (it asks me to format the card).
However, the videos are there, are readible by DJI and can be played from AC on my mobile when AC is connected to RC and RC to my mobile. Which means, I could recover them transferring to mobile and from mobile to PC. But I cannot do it for files which I recorded in H.265. Bummer!

Mirek

I was not able to transfer HDR video from the SD card to my iPad (6th Gen).  Does that mean it is a H.265 file?

For anyone using a Mac -- even if your computer is not particularly fast, Final Cut Pro can make editing h265 reasonable, as it has an option to transcode the video into Prores422 using either the "Optimized Media" (full resolution), or "Proxy Media" (half resolution). You can import from your SD card, let it transcode over night, and then edit it the next day.

Prores 422 is an all I-Frame codec that is both very low CPU requirements to edit, and very high quality so there is very little loss from transcoding into that format and then to your final publication format (regardless of if that is H264 or H265).

If you have a newer mac that has a T2 chip, Final Cut Pro can also encode your final 4K H265 video in faster-than-realtime.

STRIDE8 Posted at 6-16 07:36
I was not able to transfer HDR video from the SD card to my iPad (6th Gen).  Does that mean it is a H.265 file?

HDR recording which is lower than 60fps can be configured as H.264 or H.265.
MA2 does not support downloading H.265 files.

So - your problem may have been H.265 file. Or it may hev been something else, if you have chosen H.264 as HDR recording codec.

Mirek

Newer iOS devices use HEVC/H.265 natively for video, so it should be pretty simple for DJI to support downloading and viewing MA2 videos on them.

Mirek L Posted at 6-16 10:26
HDR recording which is lower than 60fps can be configured as H.264 or H.265.
MA2 does not support downloading H.265 files.

Thanks for the info

Bottom line is that if you shoot two files of the same size at the same bit rate, H265 will be higher quality.