HEVC (H.265)
HEVC was designed to handle the jump to 4K and HDR without doubling file sizes. It improves on H.264 with larger, more flexible coding blocks and smarter prediction, so it reaches similar quality at roughly half the bitrate. Many mirrorless cameras, drones, and phones record 4K in HEVC for exactly that reason.
The trade-off is decode cost. HEVC is heavier to decode than H.264, so editing it natively strains a timeline even more, and licensing makes it less universal in delivery. Editors usually transcode HEVC into an intermediate codec or generate proxies before cutting, then return to the originals at export. The efficiency that helps in the camera works against smooth playback in the edit.
Examples
- •A drone records 4K HEVC to fit long flights on one card
- •An iPhone shoots HEVC to save space at 4K 60fps
- •A 4K HEVC clip is transcoded to ProRes for a stable edit
In Sanbila
Sanbila takes your heavy HEVC originals, generates light proxies for editing, and keeps the originals in the cloud, so you avoid decoding HEVC on a laptop until full-quality export through Smart Relink.
Frequently asked questions
How is Sanbila different from the proxy generator built into my NLE?+
Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro and Avid all generate proxies locally, but they keep the original full-resolution files on the same SSD — so the disk fills up twice. Sanbila stores the originals in the cloud (Cloudflare R2) and keeps only the lightweight proxies on your machine. At export, Smart Relink streams the originals back via a local WebDAV mount, so you finish at full quality without ever downloading the source files.
Does Sanbila work offline?+
Yes for editing — once a proxy is cached on your SSD, you can cut, trim, color and arrange your timeline without an internet connection. You only need network access for the initial import (uploading originals to the cloud) and for the final export (streaming originals back via WebDAV).
How much cloud storage does the free plan include?+
The free plan includes 5 GB of cloud storage and one project, with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $49 per month for 2 TB and 50 projects, going up to 25 TB on the Enterprise plan with overage billing for teams that need more.
What upload speed do I need to use Sanbila?+
Any broadband connection works for the initial upload — Sanbila chunks files into 50 MB parts and uploads in parallel, so a typical 100 Mbps fiber line uploads 1 hour of 4K H.264 footage in about 6 minutes. After upload, day-to-day editing happens on local proxies, so your connection speed only matters again at export time when originals are streamed.
Which video formats does Sanbila support?+
Sanbila handles 22+ formats out of the box: MP4, MOV, MXF, R3D (RED RAW), BRAW (Blackmagic RAW), ARRI proxies, ProRes, DNxHR, DNxHD, H.264, H.265, plus WAV and AAC for audio. Both 4K and 8K sources are supported up to 200 GB per single file (URL imports have no size limit).