With changeset a41325fc854f, the x265 library can invoke the SVT-HEVC library for encoding through the —svt option. We have mapped presets and command-line options supported by the x265 application into the equivalent options of SVT-HEVC, and have added a few specific options that are available only when the SVT-HEVC library is invoked. This page in our documentation describes the steps to build, and invoke the SVT-HEVC library in more detail.
Our reason for this integration was to enable our users to evaluate additional relative trade-offs between performance and compression efficiency while working behind the familiar API of the x265 library. In the long term, we plan to leverage this integration to further improve x265’s ability to handle real-time and low turn-around scenarios in pure software; this is the space that SVT-HEVC was focused on. In parallel, we will continue to innovate on our flagship presets that are used in offline encoding where x265 dominates. You can expect to see these changes in the coming releases of x265, increasing the reach of open-source for video compression!