x265vfw 4.30

x265vfw puts an H.265/HEVC encoder inside the compression dropdown of any application built on Video for Windows.

In practice that means VirtualDub, VirtualDub2 and a long tail of older capture and editing tools that never learned to speak HEVC on their own.

It is free, it installs in under a minute, and version 4.30 arrived on 9 August 2026.

What x265vfw Actually Does

VfW is the old Windows codec interface, and applications that use it can only offer you the codecs registered on your system. x265vfw registers itself as one of them, so HEVC appears in the same list as your existing lossless and MPEG-4 options.

Under the hood it is the real x265 encoder, wrapped in a settings dialog instead of a command line. Version 4.30 carries x265 4.3 (build 217), so you are getting current compression, not a frozen fork.

It also decodes. The package includes an FFmpeg-based decoder side, which is what lets a VfW application open an HEVC file rather than only write one.

That decoding can be handed to your graphics card instead of your processor, using the DXVA, D3D11VA and CUVID paths - the hardware acceleration explained in our guide to how DirectX and D3D11 video decoding work. It only applies inside VfW applications, so ordinary playback in Windows still wants something like LAV Filters.

Output can go straight to a raw H.265 stream or into an AVI, MKV or MP4 container, chosen with the muxer setting in the dialog.

What Changed in 4.30

The encoder library moved from x265 4.1 to 4.3, and the bundled FFmpeg build went from 6.1.2 to 6.1.6, which covers colour space handling, decoding and the file writer.

New in this release is YUV422 input at 10 and 16 bits, using the P210 and P216 pixel formats. If you feed x265vfw from a 10-bit 4:2:2 capture or an AviSynth chain, that path no longer needs a conversion step in front of it.

The 32-bit and 64-bit DLLs now ship in a single installer, and on a 64-bit system both get installed by default. That matters more than it sounds, because a 32-bit host application cannot load a 64-bit codec - installing both means the codec turns up whichever version of VirtualDub you happen to open.

The bcrypt.dll dependency in the FFmpeg build has been removed again, which quietly fixes the odd startup failure on stripped-down or older Windows installs.

The Three Encoders in the Download List

The download page offers three standalone applications alongside the codec itself. They are separate programs, not parts of x265vfw, and you do not need any of them for VirtualDub work.

• Internet Friendly Media Encoder - the tool once listed here as "x265 UI". It has grown into a full batch encoder with hardware acceleration and now lives on its own page.
• Baka Encoder - a minimal drag-and-drop HEVC converter, useful when you want one file turned into H.265 and nothing else. It ships as a RAR archive, so you will need an extractor before you can run it.
• x265GUI by ozok - a front end for the command-line x265 build, offered as build 0.180 and as a 0.186 executable-only update.

None of the three uses the x265vfw codec. They call the x265 encoder directly, which is why their output can differ from what VirtualDub produces with the same nominal settings.

Setting It Up in VirtualDub

1. Run the installer and let it register the codec. On 64-bit Windows the 4.30 installer places both DLLs, so no second download is needed.
2. Open VirtualDub and load your source file.
3. Go to Video, then Compression, and pick x265vfw - H.265/HEVC codec from the list.
4. Click Configure to set the rate control mode, preset and output depth, then close the dialog with OK.
5. Save the AVI as usual, or set the muxer option in the codec dialog if you want MKV or MP4 written directly.

VirtualDub is the worked example here because it is the one most people have, but nothing above is specific to it. Any program that offers a Video for Windows compression list will show x265vfw in the same place, under whatever that program calls its codec picker.

CRF around 28 and the Medium preset is a sensible starting point for general material. Drop the CRF number for higher quality and a bigger file, raise it for the opposite.

Keeping x265GUI on the Latest x265 Build

x265GUI 0.180 ships with the x265 binary that was current when ozok built it, and it does not update itself. If you want the newest encoder behind that interface, swap the executable yourself.

Grab the current x265.exe command-line build and copy it into the x265gui\tools folder, overwriting the file already there. Nothing else needs changing.

If you are muxing the resulting raw streams into MP4 afterwards, MP4Box - GPAC and MKVToolNix both handle HEVC cleanly.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

The tell is simple: if you are not opening VirtualDub or another Video for Windows application, you do not need a VfW codec. Installing one to convert a holiday video is the long way round, and the Video Encoders category has gentler options.

For straightforward file conversion, HandBrake and FastFlix both wrap the same x265 encoder in an interface built for the job.

For heavier work, StaxRip handles filtering and batch jobs, while XMedia Recode covers format juggling and device presets.

Shutter Encoder is the pick if you want batch work and light editing in one window. Our roundup of free HEVC encoders compared puts all of them side by side.

If compatibility matters more than file size, stay on H.264. The x264 Video Codec plays on essentially everything, and x264 VfW is the direct equivalent of this page's product for VirtualDub users.

Quick questions

Download x265vfw 4.30 and see how it handles your files, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.