The main reason to use H.264 in 2026 is legacy device support. Some devices cannot play H.265, but H.264 is playable almost anywhere, as a 20+ year old codec.
I was surprised that Twitter only lets you upload H.264 still, in 2026.
The main reason to use H.264 in 2026 is legacy device support. Some devices cannot play H.265, but H.264 is playable almost anywhere, as a 20+ year old codec.
I was surprised that Twitter only lets you upload H.264 still, in 2026.
Twitter's video story is not their strongest. I used to run an account that posted a lot of video content, and their compression quality was so mixed that I ended up writing a little mobile app that would transcode videos to Twitter's advertised optimal format (720p 30fps H.264 5Mbps + AAC LC) before uploading them.
Even then, it was a crapshoot whether or not the video would look like a pixel collage, and I'd need to delete the Tweet, tweak the video a bit, and try again.