What is the most used video codec for streaming nowadays?

[Andrejs_Sapals]

Hello,

Fore some time I am playing with ffmpeg digging different articles in the network on how to stream FHD quality.

For example twitch:
https://stream.twitch.tv/encoding/

FHD has 6000 bits/s. Youtube says they suggests a bit more.

When I am trying to set ffmpeg h264 with such bitrate and low latency
25 fps, 1920x1080, 8000 kbts/s I can not reach the same picture quality as they have on twitch, youtube or even casinos like evolution gaming.

Maybe I am going with a wrong way and h264 is not modern anymore?

When I am watching my video through CDN with bitrate 8000, I still can see some squares/pixel in the video.

[Karel_Boek]

H.264 is still the most used codec; mostly because almost every player and device supports it. Indeed there are other codec that can provide better quality results at the same bitrate (or same results at a lower bitrate), but regardless: with 8Mbps you should see a quite decent picture quality with H.264. My guess is that it’s rather the encoding parameters that you may need to review and tune.

I recommend to look up and read some articles from Jan Ozer, who is a renowned expert on encoding. His advise is basically: measure twice, cut once. Here are some links that may help you:

https://www.streamingmedia.com/Authors/4247-Jan-Ozer.htm
https://streaminglearningcenter.com/