When I search for links I will often get links for a given show or movie using the same compression, but of varying sizes. Last night, for example, I got two links for a show showing 1080 resolution, 265 compression, one of 2.54 gb and one of 1.02 gb. If everything else is equal, what does this difference mean? If buffering is not a problem, is there any advantage to using the larger file? And, with everything else equal, if I have to choose between a 0.94 and 0.31 gb file for a 1-hour tv show, will the 0.31 gb file likely contain comparable resolution and other content–is there a minimum size below which the experience is degraded?
That comes with how the video is encoded and what quality its encoded in along with file type. Other file types are bigger. Generally the bigger the file size the better or closer it is to 720 1080 or higher. Higher resolutions are more gigs. If something is off by a few it will still probably be the resolution its in.
I wouldnt worry about this unless its a cam that says hd… cams will never be full hd. Its files size will be small and thats how you know.
So if you have two HEVC files of different sizes, using what I assume are the same compression methods, is it just a question of what setting was used when compressing them, or is there a difference in, say, how much loss is involved or something like that? Also, if the content is the same, is decompression easier on your system (NVidia pro in my case) with a larger file?
The H.265 was developed to replace the H.264 codec, but it still hasn’t replaced the older format as the industry leader. Though the H.264 is still more widely used, the H.265 allows lower bandwidth while streaming. The algorithm it uses has 50% better compression efficiency, which results in smaller files. This codec is also the first to support 8k resolution.
That still doesn’t answer the question of what is the difference between two H.265 files for the same show that are, respectively (and to pick something I watched last night) 2.54 GB and 1.02 GB. If buffering is not an issue, is there any reason to prefer one over the other? Is anything lost with the smaller file sizes, or gained by using the larger ones?
It comes down to bitrate. Just Google or go on YouTube and search for “video encoding explained” and you’ll find all you need to know. I’m not going to copy and paste everything into here.