RARBG adopted x265 (HEVC) relatively early. While x264 (AVC) was the universal compatibility king, x265 offered roughly 50% better compression. For a site hosting thousands of movies, this meant lower bandwidth costs and happier users with small hard drives.
But x265 is notoriously finicky. Bad settings produce "blocky" shadows or "waxy" skin tones. RARBG didn't have bad settings. Rarbg X265 Encoding Settings
Based on analysis of their internal encodes (and notes from former internal encoders who surfaced on forums after the shutdown), the standard RARBG x265 profile looked something like this: RARBG adopted x265 (HEVC) relatively early
--preset slow --crf 18.0 --profile main10 --level 4.1 --output-depth 10 --aq-mode 3 --no-sao --deblock -1:-1 --limit-sao --qcomp 0.7
Let’s break down why each of these lines matters. Let’s break down why each of these lines matters
x265 has notorious pitfalls. Here is how RARBG's settings mitigated them:
| Defect | Default x265 Behavior | RARBG Fix |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Blocking in dark skies | Low bitrate allocation to uniform areas. | aq-mode=3 forces bits to flat dark areas. |
| Skin looking waxy | Over-smoothing from sao. | no-sao=1 keeps natural skin texture. |
| Color banding | 8-bit dithering fails on gradients. | Used --dither in x265 or encoded in 10-bit (even for 1080p). |
| Ringing around text | deblock set too low. | deblock=-2,-2 softens but prevents rings. |