How do I Transcode to H.265?

[AlternateWitness]

1. 1st and foremost. What is your server setup? Hardware, OS, Version?

2. Assuming you are using JF app on iphone, go to: Settings -> Playback -> Advanced: "Prefer fMP4-HLS Container

You may also try going to client settings and switching to the integrated player instead of the web player, which supports more codec. If you do that make sure you go back into playback settings and re "prefer" the MP4-HLS container.

3. On roku - options -> settings -> playback -> profile level support -> HEVC - Enabled. Also be aware that only some Roku hardware supports HEVC, 

Also note Roku app still a WIP there is an open ticket for people that have HEVC issues. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-roku/issues/449

I just did some testing for my own sanity on Chrome browse because it was my understanding that it wasnt supported and sure enough even playing on web browser direct on my server it's transcoding to h264. So if using chrome that won't work and if chrome is your default browser on your iphone youll need to switch to internal player.

I also verified it didnt work in firefox or brave just for S&G.

And for good measure I pulled up a JF media player desktop client just to ensure that it would serve HEVC direct play (it does) and then I lowered bit rate to 720kbps and... it transcoded to h264!

What is going on!?

Found it - once again in client settings - had to CHECK the box to allow HEVC transcoding.

Moral of the story - if your sure your server is set up properly - the issue lies with the clients.

Hi, so I looked and apparently more browsers support AV1 than HEVC. Is there a way I can make JellyFin transcode to AV1 if it needs to instead of HEVC? HEVC is the only option in the client settings.

[TheDreadPirate]

AFAIK, there is no option to transcode TO AV1.  Also, you would need an Intel Arc, Nvidia RTX 4000, or RX 7000 GPU to encode in AV1 anyway.

[AlternateWitness]

AFAIK, there is no option to transcode TO AV1.  Also, you would need an Intel Arc, Nvidia RTX 4000, or RX 7000 GPU to encode in AV1 anyway.

The CPU can transcode, and at a high enough preset it can do it pretty fast. I’m sure the quality loss from that won’t be as great as a low bitrate H.264 transcode.

[TheDreadPirate]

Depends on the encoder. Intel's QSV does shockingly good low bit rate H264. Even on my old Skylake based J4205 (HD 505 graphics). In their 13th Gen CPUs and Intel ARC GPUs, QSV is pretty much untouchable. Newer NVENCs are getting really good too in 3000+ series cards. AMD's VCN in the RX7000 series has significantly shrunken the gap, but still lags.

You also have to consider that while your CPU might be able to transcode one AV1 stream, if you have multiple devices transcoding you're probably going to have issues. In addition to anything else you might be running in the background.

Stick with accelerated transcoding. The quality difference between good H264 transcoding and H265, or even, AV1 is really not that big.