H.264 versus H.265

[Sham 69]

H.265 supposedly gives you twice the quality for the same bitrate as H.264. So an H.265 at 500kbps would have the same quality as an H.264 at 1000kbps?

I compressed three videos with H.265 and have notice that it takes longer, but I don't mind.

I see a search estimation method called "Star Search". In what way is that different than the others?

[eumagga0x2a]

So an H.265 at 500kbps would have the same quality as an H.264 at 1000kbps?

It depends on encoder settings and on the properties of the video, e.g. HEVC is much more efficient at high resolutions. But in general, yes, HEVC allows substantially higher quality as H.264 at the same bitrate (or a lower bitrate for the same quality). This comes at a cost: the decoding of HEVC is very expensive computationally. Decide wisely whether your hardware, especially the availability of hw accelerated decoding, allows you to profit from HEVC.

I see a search estimation method called "Star Search". In what way is that different than the others?

I resorted to https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1789660#post1789660 as my source of information.