HVEC x265 mp4 or wmv?

[Gary Johnstone]

I use HVEC x265 mp4 settings to reduce size with AfterCodecs.
You can also choose WMV for AfterCodecs HVEC x265.

My question:
Does the extension mp4 or wmv effect compression?
If not, what is the reason for commonly using mp4?

The HVEC x265 mp4 thumbnails are absent on many machines!
Just trying to work out what the major tradeoffs are, if any?

[Steve Griffiths · Accepted solution]

WMV is a pretty dead format and I would not use it anymore and it's also no longer playable on Macs except through VLC.

H.265 (HVEC x265) is great (compared to H.264) IF you want smaller file sizes but maintain image quality .,. but if you don't need to worry about file size there's not a compelling reason (yet) to go with H.265 and I would suggest in most circumstances and I would suggest that standard MP4 H.264 is the safer option. Also H.265 requires more processing power to playback, so requires more modern hardware. 

MP4 and WMV (and any codec) depends on the datarate during creation (export) to determine how good it looks. Higher datarates = better picture quality (and less compression). MP4 (H.264) is the perhaps the most 'universal' format and can play almost anywhere and therefore is always a good choice.

But what are you exporting for and to who. If it's a final program and you want to keep a high quality master then exporting to a better codec (like ProresHQ) may be the better option. From this 'master' you can create other versions in MP4 etc. All depends on your 'use case'.

[Gary Johnstone]

That covered every question in detail.

Thank you