H.265 (also known as HEVC or H265) is a modern and efficient video codec capable of high-efficiency video compression. Due to licensing requirements, its availability in browsers is limited, but there are ways to enable and use it.

H.265/HEVC Status

H.265/HEVC is currently not supported in your browser

Supported Codecs

VP8

H264

AV1

VP9

H.265/HEVC Browser Support

H.265/HEVC support varies by browser:

Enabling H.265 in Chrome on Windows

Method 1: Using a Desktop Shortcut

  1. Right-click on your Chrome desktop shortcut (create one if you don't have it)
  2. Select "Properties"
  3. In the "Target" field, after the quotes containing the Chrome executable path, add a space and then paste: --enable-features=PlatformHEVCEncoderSupport,WebRtcAllowH265Receive,WebRtcAllowH265Send --force-fieldtrials=WebRTC-Video-H26xPacketBuffer/Enabled
  4. The complete target should look similar to: "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --enable-features=PlatformHEVCEncoderSupport,WebRtcAllowH265Receive,WebRtcAllowH265Send --force-fieldtrials=WebRTC-Video-H26xPacketBuffer/Enabled
  5. Click "Apply" and "OK"
Note: You must launch Chrome using this modified shortcut to enable H.265 support.

Method 2: Using Command Prompt

  1. Close all running Chrome instances
  2. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog
  3. Type "cmd" and press Enter to open Command Prompt
  4. Navigate to Chrome's installation directory (typically): cd "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application"
  5. Run Chrome with the parameters: chrome.exe --enable-features=PlatformHEVCEncoderSupport,WebRtcAllowH265Receive,WebRtcAllowH265Send --force-fieldtrials=WebRTC-Video-H26xPacketBuffer/Enabled
Important: These settings need to be applied each time you launch Chrome. Using a modified shortcut (Method 1) is more convenient for regular use.

Important Compatibility Notice

While H.265/HEVC offers excellent compression efficiency, there are some important considerations:

VDO.Ninja handles this gracefully by automatically falling back to other codecs if H.265 negotiation fails. You can specify a codec preference order using the codec parameter in your viewer link:

Example: &codec=h265,av1,h264,vp8

This tells VDO.Ninja to try codecs in order: first H.265, then AV1, then H.264, and finally VP8, ensuring the best available codec is used for each connection.