The most useful way to think about this is not “old codec versus new codec,” but “compatibility versus compression efficiency.”

H.264/AVC is already a very efficient inter-frame codec and has extremely mature hardware and software support. H.265/HEVC gives the encoder more flexible coding tools, so at a similar visual quality target it can often use a lower bitrate. That can translate into smaller files or more quality at a given bitrate, especially for high-resolution material.

The trade-off is that your editing experience depends on more than the file size. A 4K HEVC clip can be smaller than an H.264 clip and still be harder for a particular computer to decode interactively. Check whether your GPU supports hardware decoding for the exact HEVC profile, bit depth, resolution and frame rate your camera uses. If it does, HEVC can be a very sensible capture format. If it does not, H.264 may feel much easier even when its files are larger.

I would separate the capture decision from the editing decision.

At capture time, choose the mode that preserves what you need: resolution, frame rate, bit depth, HDR/Log mode and enough bitrate for the scene. If that happens to be HEVC, I would not avoid it just because the laptop is slower. Keep the camera originals and solve the editing side with hardware decoding or proxies.

That distinction matters because converting every HEVC camera file to H.264 before you even start can create a second lossy generation, larger files, and more media to manage. A proxy is different: it is a temporary lightweight editing representation. The original stays untouched and can be used again for final rendering.

So if storage is the main constraint, HEVC is attractive. If maximum compatibility and a simple native-edit workflow are more important, H.264 remains a very strong choice.

For Windows editing, test one representative clip before deciding that the codec itself is the problem. Put a 30–60 second 4K clip on a local SSD, enable hardware decoding in the editor, scrub it, add one color correction, and try a short export.

In VSDC, H.264 and H.265/HEVC can be edited directly, and proxy workflows are available when high-resolution footage is too demanding for comfortable preview. That makes it possible to keep efficient HEVC camera masters without forcing the timeline to decode the full source for every preview operation.

We put the underlying trade-off into a plain-language comparison here: H.264 vs H.265/HEVC: what is the difference and which should you use?. The short version is: choose H.264 when compatibility is the priority; choose HEVC when storage/bandwidth efficiency is the priority and your hardware handles it well.

One extra point: do not compare codecs while silently changing everything else.

A camera might offer H.264 in an 8-bit standard-color mode and HEVC in a 10-bit Log or HDR mode. If the HEVC file is harder to edit, that does not prove “HEVC is bad.” You may also have doubled the bit depth, increased the frame rate, changed chroma/profile requirements, or enabled a higher-resolution mode.

For image quality, codec efficiency is only one layer. Exposure, sensor noise, sharpening, temporal noise reduction and the camera's own image processing can matter more than the AVC-versus-HEVC label. Compare two modes under the same scene and as many matching settings as the camera allows. Then you can judge the real workflow difference instead of comparing two completely different recording pipelines.