Content creation is everywhere now, whether it's videos for YouTube, reels for social media, or other niche production sites. As a creator, you may have already installed one of the best GPUs for video editing, fired up a video editing program, then once you arrived at the export stage, wondered what all the different video codec options meant. Or maybe you wanted to livestream to Twitch or one of the other popular sites via OBS Studio, then weren't sure which codec would actually be the best fit for the site. We've got you covered here with a rundown of the most popular video codecs, to help you pick the one that will be best suited for your needs.

Why you need to use a video codec

Hint: Video files are huge when uncompressed

If you use your smartphone for family videos, you know how quickly the storage gets filled up. That's even with modern smartphones encoding their video with codecs that shrink the file size by using advanced compression algorithms. Uncompressed video takes up a ton of space, and you'd quickly run out of internal storage. Now think about the storage needs for producing feature-length movies or TV shows, and you'll get a sense of why video codecs are important.

Storage is only part of the problem, however, as you also need to consider how to serve that content to viewers. That's less of a consideration for films, as they get sent on physical media to the movie theaters. But the new audience preference is to watch more movies at home now. Even with the increase in broadband speeds across the world, it's a virtual impossibility to stream uncompressed video over the internet.

Video codecs take the individual frames of your video recording, and compress them to a smaller file size. They also do the reverse, decoding the compressed data on the viewing device so that the quality can be kept high even with a lower file size. The name, codec, is a portmanteau of encoder and decoder to signify the two parts of the equation. Without them, even SD content would struggle to be viewed on mobile devices, and higher resolutions like 4K or 8K would be near impossible.

Popular video codecs

And when to use them

• H.264 aka AVC: This is the most common video codec, with the widest support for playback from devices. It's used in video streaming, Blu-ray discs, and even cable TV broadcasting to compress video down to manageable bandwidth levels. It's not the most efficient codec, but can be encoded or decoded by almost any CPU without needing a powerful GPU. It's what most livestreamers on sites like Twitch or YouTube use, and likely won't be replaced any time soon.
• H.265 aka HEVC: Designed as a replacement for H.264, High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) hasn't quite replaced it yet, mainly because of the higher hardware requirements for decoding or encoding, and higher licensing fees. But it does come with benefits, like 50% higher compression efficiency and the ability to create 8K resolution video files. It's growing in popularity, but not every device can decode it, so for a wider audience, you should choose another more accessible option.
• AV1: This codec was created as an open source, royalty free alternative to HEVC, and is even more efficient at compressing video while keeping visual fidelity. It's around 12% more efficient than HEVC, reducing bandwidth requirements substantially. The major streaming sites are all looking at using or already implementing AV1 currently, as are Meta's social media sites.
• VP9: This is another royalty free codec created as an alternative to HEVC. VP9 was mostly used by YouTube, Wikipedia, even Netflix, and is now supported by all major web browsers. Usually it's not used by the content creator, moreso by the distributor, as the streaming sites transcode to this codec for transmission to the viewer.
• H.266 aka VVC: Created as the successor to HEVC, Versatile Video Coding (VVC) looks promising, with 50% bitrate reductions over the lower bitrates of HEVC. However, it's still very new and, as such, isn't really supported widely. It's worth knowing that it exists, but it's not one that you are likely to use any time soon.
• Apple ProRes: Created by Apple as a "visually lossless" codec for post-production use, this codec is heavily used in the film industry. Instead of being aimed at transmission or storage, ProRes is an intermediate codec for use by video editors, before they encode it into the final form. It reduces the strain on the editing machine and the disks holding the video files, so the whole editing process can be smoother. YouTube lets you upload ProRes without rendering to another format, so you can stay in high quality all the way through the process.
• Avid DNxHD: Another intermediate codec, DNxHD is mainly used by video editors working on the final project. It can also be used for the final file type if desired, and is another high quality codec that YouTube accepts as uploads.

Which of these codecs you'll use for rendering your video projects depends on where the final file is going. As you can see, YouTube accepts a wide variety of codec types when uploading to the service, and it's always best to use as high quality of a codec as possible. Livestreamers have different requirements, as they have to upload the stream in real time, and have to use lighter-weight codecs like H.264 or H.265. It's likely that AV1 will take over as it becomes more widespread, but then there's always the possibility that another codec will be released and become the most efficient one to use.

The best codec to use depends on the circumstances

When deciding which video codec to use when rendering your finished video project, there is no single best option. It really depends on what your needs are, and what the finished file will be used for. To a lesser extent, it depends on which graphics card you have, as newer ones can encode a wider variety of codecs. For online videos or livestreaming, you'll likely be using H.264, or AV1 if for YouTube. Twitch is currently beta testing AV1 and HEVC, so I expect those to be used more commonly going forward. Video professionals will likely stay in ProRes or DNxHD if possible, to keep the highest quality footage for post-production use. Codec choice also depends on whether your hardware is powerful enough to encode it, as well as any size requirements for the finished file.