Increasing demand for high definition and ultra-high definition video, along with an increasing desire for video on demand has led to exponential growth in demand for bandwidth and storage requirements. These challenges can be met by the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, also known as H.265. The x265 HEVC encoder project was launched by MulticoreWare in 2013, aiming to provide the most efficient, highest performance HEVC video encoder.
The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) was developed by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG), through their Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). HEVC is also known as ISO/IEC 23008-2 MPEG-H Part 2 and ITU-T H.265. HEVC provides superior video quality and up to twice the data compression as the previous standard (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC). HEVC can support 8K Ultra High Definition video, with a picture size up to 8192x4320 pixels.
The primary objective of x265 is to become the best H.265/HEVC encoder available anywhere, offering the highest compression efficiency and the highest performance on a wide variety of hardware platforms. The x265 encoder is available as an open source library, published under the GPLv2 license. It is also available under a commercial license, enabling commercial companies to utilize and distribute x265 in their solutions without being subject to the restrictions of the GPL license.
x265 is developed by MulticoreWare, leaders in high performance software solutions, with backing from leading video technology providers including Telestream and Doremi Labs (and other companies who want to remain anonymous at this time), and with contributions from open source developers. x265 leverages many of the outstanding video encoding features and optimizations from the x264 AVC encoder project.
The x265 software is available for free under the GNU GPL 2 license, from https://bitbucket.org/multicoreware/x265. For commercial companies that wish to distribute x265 without being subject to the open source requirements of the GPL 2 license, commercial licenses are available with competitive terms. Contact license @ x265.com to inquire about commercial license terms.
While x265 is primarily designed as a video encoder software library, a command-line executable is provided to facilitate testing and development. We expect x265 to be utilized in many leading video hardware and software products and services in the coming months.
The x265 software is owned and copyrighted by MulticoreWare, Inc. MulticoreWare is committed to offering the x265 software under the GNU GPL v2 license. Companies who do not wish to integrate the x265 Software in their products under the terms of the GPL license can contact MulticoreWare (license @ x265.com) to obtain a commercial license agreement. Companies who use x265 under the GPL may also wish to work with MulticoreWare to accelerate the development of specific features or optimized support for specific hardware or software platforms, or to contract for support.
The GNU GPL v2 license or the x265 commercial license agreement govern your rights to access the copyrighted x265 software source code, but do not cover any patents that may be applicable to the function of binary executable software created from the x265 source code. You are responsible for understanding the laws in your country, and for licensing all applicable patent rights needed for use or distribution of software applications created from the x265 source code. A good place to start is with the Motion Picture Experts Group - Licensing Authority - HEVC Licensing Program.
x265 is a registered trademark of MulticoreWare, Inc. The x265 logo is a trademark of MulticoreWare, and may only be used with explicit written permission. All rights reserved.