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SVT-HEVC

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OpenVisualCloud/SVT-HEVC

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SVT HEVC encoder. Scalable Video Technology (SVT) is a software-based video coding technology that is highly optimized for Intel® Xeon® processors. Using the open source SVT-HEVC encoder, it is possible to spread video encoding processing…

Latest release
v1.5.1
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SVT-HEVC (Scalable Video Technology for HEVC) is Intel’s open-source H.265 / HEVC encoder, licensed under BSD+Patent. It was built for throughput on Intel Xeon servers, runs only on x86, and offers 12 speed presets (-encMode 0–11, default 7).

SVT-HEVC was never merged into FFmpeg. libsvt_hevc only exists in FFmpeg builds patched with the project’s plugin patches, which target FFmpeg 4.4-era sources. x265 can also use SVT-HEVC as a backend (--svt) if it was compiled with the library.

Legacy use

Section titled “Legacy use”

If you have to maintain an old workflow, build the last tag (./build.sh release in Build/linux on Linux; binaries land in Bin/Release) and use the v1.5.1 user guide for the full option list.

Terminal window
SvtHevcEncApp -i input.y4m -encMode 4 -q 22 -b output.265

The default rate control is constant QP (-rc 0, -q, default 32). -rc 1 -tbr <bits per second> selects VBR. Lower -encMode values are slower and higher quality. Y4M input carries its bit depth; for 10-bit raw YUV, add -bit-depth 10 along with -w, -h and -fps.

Section titled “Related pages”