Codec comparison: HEVC vs VP9 vs AV1

Of course Youtube adds its own compression on top,
therefore watch in 4K, even if your resolution is lower.

The indexed freeze frames show the differences most
clearly since they were frozen after the encoding.
For the image format see bit.ly/3I7xsn4

Top left: reference DNxHD, top right: H265 aka HEVC,
bottom left: VP9, bottom right: AV1.

HEVC was encoded with Media Encoder, while
VP9 and AV1 were encoded with Shutter Encoder.

This video has no audio since it only compares
the visual quality of the codecs at various bitrates
and you can draw your own conclusions.

I was surprised the AV1 codec did not win, but
it might be better with talking head videos where
the background is static, while here the codecs
were tested for action at fast shutter speeds.

For action footage in 4K, 30 fps I recommend
HEVC at around 65 mbit/s for best results since the
quality is good and the encoding speed is fast.
40 mbit/s is the lowest I would go for 4K, 30 fps
videos stored in my local archive on HDD.

Youtube will reencode that to VP9 at 18 mbit/s, which
is not ideal at high motion, but this is what you get.

0:00 uncompressed DNxHR
0:10 freeze frame A, DNxHR
0:30 freeze frame B, DNxHR
0:39 comparison at 2Mbit/s
0:49 freeze frame A, 2Mbit/s
1:09 freeze frame B, 8Mbit/s
1:18 comparison at 8Mbit/s
1:28 freeze frame A, 8Mbit/s
1:48 freeze frame B, 8Mbit/s
1:57 comparison at 12Mbit/s
2:07 freeze frame A, 12Mbit/s
2:27 freeze frame B, 12Mbit/s
2:37 comparison at 20Mbit/s
2:47 freeze frame A, 20Mbit/s
3:07 freeze frame B, 20Mbit/s