HEVC to AV1 Converter

HEVC vs AV1 — Should You Re-encode H.265 to AV1?

HEVC (H.265) and AV1 are both modern, highly efficient codecs from the same generation, so this is a lateral move, not an upgrade — you won't gain quality, and AV1 isn't dramatically smaller than HEVC at the same quality. The real reason to convert is licensing and web reach: AV1 is royalty-free and has broad native browser support, while HEVC carries patent-royalty baggage and patchy web playback. If your video lives in a web, streaming, or open-source pipeline, convert to AV1. If you mainly need playback on Apple devices and the file is already small, staying on HEVC is fine.

Side-by-side Comparison

When to Pick HEVC (Stay on H.265)

• You are storing iPhone, drone, or 4K/HDR originals and only play them back on Apple devices, where HEVC decodes in hardware.
• The file is already compact and you do not want to spend the long AV1 encode time for a small size gain.
• You need to preserve HDR or Dolby Vision metadata — re-encoding can drop or alter it, so keep the original HEVC stream when color accuracy is critical.
• For maximum device compatibility instead of AV1, convert to an H.264 MP4 — see HEVC to MP4, which plays on essentially every device made since 2010.

When to Pick AV1 (Convert from HEVC)

• You are publishing to the open web or streaming and want a royalty-free codec free of HEVC's patent-licensing complications.
• Your target is Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or YouTube, where AV1 plays natively but HEVC often does not.
• You are standardizing an open-source or self-hosted pipeline on royalty-free formats end to end.
• You can tolerate a long encode in exchange for a license-clean, web-friendly output at roughly the same visual quality.

How to Convert HEVC to AV1

1. Upload Your HEVC File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select a .hevc raw H.265 stream or an HEVC clip in MP4/MOV/MKV. Batch conversion is supported.
2. Pick a File Compression Mode: Output video codec is AV1 by default. Use the Quality Preset (Very High is recommended) for a balance of size and detail, choose Constant Quality for consistent visual quality, or set Specific file size or a Constant/Variable Bitrate to cap output.
3. Resize or Trim (Optional): Pick a Preset Resolution (down to 144p) or Width x Height, scale with Resolution Percentage, or set a Time Range to trim. Audio defaults to Opus, the royalty-free companion to AV1.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will converting HEVC to AV1 improve the video quality?

No. Both are modern lossy codecs, and re-encoding cannot recover detail that HEVC already discarded — every lossy-to-lossy pass can only lose a little more, never add quality. At best, a high-quality AV1 encode looks visually indistinguishable from the HEVC source. Convert for licensing and web compatibility, not for a quality boost.

Will the AV1 file be much smaller than my HEVC source?

Not dramatically. AV1 is roughly 30% more efficient than HEVC at equal quality, so at the same visual quality you may see a modest reduction, not a half-sized file. If you push quality lower you will get a smaller file, but you trade away detail. The headline reason to convert is that AV1 is royalty-free and web-native, not that it shrinks an already-efficient HEVC file by a lot.

Why does the AV1 conversion take so long?

AV1 encoding is computationally heavy and commonly runs several times slower than HEVC encoding, which is itself slow. A large or high-resolution HEVC file can take a long time to re-encode to AV1. This is a known tradeoff of the codec, not a problem with the file — using a Quality Preset rather than a very low bitrate target keeps encode times more predictable.

Can AV1 carry the HDR or Dolby Vision metadata my HEVC file has?

AV1 supports HDR10 and HLG, so standard HDR can survive a careful re-encode. Dolby Vision is more fragile across a codec change and may be dropped or flattened to standard HDR. If preserving Dolby Vision exactly matters, keep the original HEVC stream rather than re-encoding to AV1.

Is AV1 actually more compatible on the web than HEVC?

For browsers, yes. AV1 plays natively in Chrome 70+, Firefox 67+, Edge 121+, and Safari 17+ (partial), reaching roughly 93% of global users, and YouTube serves AV1. HEVC playback in browsers is limited to Safari and Edge with hardware support and Chrome 107+ hardware-only, and Firefox does not play it at all. That web-reach gap, plus AV1 being royalty-free, is the main reason to convert.

Do I need special hardware to play AV1 after converting?

Not necessarily. Any modern browser decodes AV1 in software, and recent silicon (Intel Arc, NVIDIA RTX 30/40, Apple M3, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2) adds hardware decode for smooth high-resolution playback. On older devices without that chip, AV1 falls back to CPU decoding, which can stutter above 1080p — in that case an HEVC to MP4 H.264 conversion is the safer target.

What happens to my files after conversion?

Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion. There is no sign-up, no watermark, and your files are never shared or made public. In our testing, a 1080p HEVC clip re-encoded to AV1 at the Very High preset stayed close to the source size while producing a clean, license-free output ready for web embedding.