How can I use libx265 (H.265) in the ffmpeg-python package?

Question

How can I use libx265 (H.265) in the ffmpeg-python package?

I tried using:

(
    ffmpeg
    .input('0.mp4')
    .filter('fps', fps=25, round='up')
    .output('out.mkv', format='h265')
    .run()
)

But it is throwing an error:

format is not recognized

But this works:

(
    ffmpeg
    .input('0.mp4')
    .filter('fps', fps=25, round='up')
    .output('out.mkv', format='h264')
    .run()
)

Answer 1

Replace format='h265' with vcodec='libx265'.

---

• H.265 is a video codec, and vcodec='libx265' tells FFmpeg to use the libx265 video encoder.
• The output format, in case of an MKV video container is format='matroska'. You don't have to set the format, because FFmpeg automatically selects the output format by the .mkv file extension.

---

Updated code:

import ffmpeg

(
    ffmpeg
    .input('0.mp4')
    .filter('fps', fps=25, round='up')
    .output('out.mkv', vcodec='libx265')
    .run()
)