AVC stands for Advanced Video Coding, also known as H.264. It is one of the most widely used video compression standards of the past couple decades, found everywhere from Blu-ray discs to YouTube uploads and streaming video. The basic job of AVC is to shrink video files while keeping the picture looking good, which it does by compressing redundancy between frames and focusing data on the parts of the image that change. When a file or stream lists “H.264,” it is referring to AVC.
In practical terms, AVC is known for being efficient, reliable, and broadly compatible across devices, which is a big reason it became so common. For example, most standard Blu-ray movies use AVC for their 1080p video. Compared to newer codecs like HEVC (H.265), AVC usually needs more bitrate to achieve the same quality at higher resolutions, which is why HEVC is more common for 4K delivery. Still, a well-encoded AVC file at a healthy bitrate can look excellent, and because it is easy for hardware to decode, it tends to play smoothly on almost anything.
