H.264 (AVC) Guide
The universal baseline that refuses to die.
The Ubiquity of AVC
Advanced Video Coding (AVC / H.264) was standardized in 2003. It is arguably the most successful media standard in human history. Its primary advantage today is not efficiency, but universal hardware decoding. Every smartphone, smart TV, set-top box, and laptop built in the last 15 years contains silicon dedicated to decoding H.264.
| Resolution | Target Bitrate (Action) | Target Bitrate (Talking Head) | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p60 | 8.0 Mbps | 4.5 Mbps | High |
| 1080p30 | 5.5 Mbps | 3.0 Mbps | High |
| 720p30 | 3.0 Mbps | 1.5 Mbps | Main |
| 480p30 | 1.2 Mbps | 0.8 Mbps | Baseline |
Common Mistakes
- Using Baseline profile for HD content: Baseline profile disables B-frames and CABAC entropy coding. It is horribly inefficient. It was required for original iPhones in 2008, but today, you should use 'High' profile for almost everything above 480p.
- Pushing H.264 to 4K: While possible, H.264 is disastrously inefficient at 4K resolutions. It lacks the large block sizes (CTUs) introduced in HEVC to efficiently encode large flat areas of pixels. 4K H.264 streams require 20-30 Mbps, which is unsustainable for CDNs.
FAQ
Can I drop H.264 entirely?
No. If you stream to the general public, you must provide H.264 renditions in your manifest as the ultimate fallback. Even if you default to HEVC or AV1, a small percentage of older Android devices or legacy smart TVs will fail without an H.264 fallback.
Next Step
Visualize how an H.264 ladder looks compared to modern codecs.