<p>It entirely depends on your definition of <em>best</em>. Different codecs do different jobs:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Do you require greater bit depth than 8-bit? Some codecs encode 10,
12 or 16 bits per channel, giving much higher colour fidelity, and
lower quantisation errors.</p></li>
<li><p>Do you need an alpha channel? Some codecs support an alpha channel to
encode transparency information, important for intermediates used in
the post production chain.</p></li>
<li><p>How efficient do you need the codec to be, i.e. how much file
compression does it offer? Lossless codecs are usually fairly
storage-hungry.</p></li>
<li><p>How fast is it to encode/decode? This is usually roughly inversely proportional to the efficiency. However speed also depends on the speed of the storage, so a codec that requires less processing per frame might have a bottleneck at the point where the frame is retrieved from disk especially for high resolution video.</p></li>
<li><p>Do you need to edit with it? Codecs that use GOP can be slower to use
in editing or post production.</p></li>
<li><p>If you're giving the footage to someone is it likely that they'll be
able to use it on another system without too many hurdles? Is it free
to use? HEVC is free for a limited number of views, but if you're
using it to distribute content to a mass audience you'll be up for
royalties.</p></li>
<li><p>Other considerations like is it an open source codec with publicly
available description of the bitstream. Of critical importance for
long term archival, but generally unimportant for any other use.</p></li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-04T13:35:34.447Z
2018-04-09T02:08:09.010Z
2018-04-09T02:08:09.010Z
stib
<p>What is the best codec at the moment without losses? HEVC, or is it faster / more compact? In HEVC there is a lossless mode. On the Internet did not find the actual information for this year.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-04T19:41:28.450Z
What are the criteria that define best to you? The best professional mezzanine codec is different from the best scientist research codec is different from <insert scenario here> codec.
Michael Liebman
<codec>
Best lossless codec
Hask
# Best lossless codec

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-04-04)

What is the best codec at the moment without losses? HEVC, or is it faster / more compact? In HEVC there is a lossless mode. On the Internet did not find the actual information for this year.

**Tags:** codec

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: What are the criteria that define best to you? The best professional mezzanine codec is different from the best scientist research codec is different from <insert scenario here> codec.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2018-04-04. Score: 2

It entirely depends on your definition of *best*. Different codecs do different jobs:

* Do you require greater bit depth than 8-bit? Some codecs encode 10,
  12 or 16 bits per channel, giving much higher colour fidelity, and
  lower quantisation errors.
* Do you need an alpha channel? Some codecs support an alpha channel to
  encode transparency information, important for intermediates used in
  the post production chain.
* How efficient do you need the codec to be, i.e. how much file
  compression does it offer? Lossless codecs are usually fairly
  storage-hungry.
* How fast is it to encode/decode? This is usually roughly inversely proportional to the efficiency. However speed also depends on the speed of the storage, so a codec that requires less processing per frame might have a bottleneck at the point where the frame is retrieved from disk especially for high resolution video.
* Do you need to edit with it? Codecs that use GOP can be slower to use
  in editing or post production.
* If you're giving the footage to someone is it likely that they'll be
  able to use it on another system without too many hurdles? Is it free
  to use? HEVC is free for a limited number of views, but if you're
  using it to distribute content to a mass audience you'll be up for
  royalties.
* Other considerations like is it an open source codec with publicly
  available description of the bitstream. Of critical importance for
  long term archival, but generally unimportant for any other use.


---

