Intel QuickSync H.265 Max Bitrate 39Mbit/s -> falls back to software encoding above this threshold

[Luke 42832]

Hi, we'll have a new server ffmpeg build on the beta channel very soon, so stay tuned for that. Thanks.

[Mattynator 4]

On 23/07/2026 at 06:53, Luke said:

Hi, we'll have a new server ffmpeg build on the beta channel very soon, so stay tuned for that. Thanks.

Hi @Luke — a couple of things worth flagging ahead of the new ffmpeg build, since they've come up in this thread: the root cause of the QSV 39 Mbps cap was traced (see jesposito's write-up and GitHub issue) to the model layer mapping the reported HEVC Level 5.1 to the wrong bitrate — the actual hardware supports much higher, as confirmed by direct ffmpeg testing. Separately, 10-bit HEVC hardware encoding via QuickSync also isn't currently offered in my case on my Intel 265K CPU, even though Arrow Lake-S's media engine officially supports 10-bit HEVC hardware encoding up to 8K/120Hz per Intel's own spec.

Would it be worth someone on the team doing a full pass over the level/profile/bitrate mapping table rather than just these two spots, in case there are other entries that are similarly off or overly conservative? Is that mapping logic something that's getting revisited alongside the ffmpeg version bump, or is the beta build mainly a version update for now?

Appreciate all of the hard work.