VC-1 to x265

[CaveDoctor]

My preferred video standard from here on out is x265 with an honorable mention of x264 as my other preferred video streaming format.
My question, what is the quality like for converting VC-1 content to x265?
Would it be better to convert the VC-1 content to prores before converting to x265, in order to avoid degradation?
Also, are there any methods of audio upscaling?

[Doctor M]

The easy answer is no. Besides anything you convert it to will be inherently lossy, x265 isn't mature enough to actually produce good results.

[spoRv]

x265 isn't mature enough to actually produce good results.

Because it's x265 - and maybe other HEVC/h.265 encoders will produce better results?
Or talking about the whole HEVC/h.265 codec? Because UHD-BD quality is not that bad, I guess...

[CaveDoctor]

The Big Lebowski certainly kicked ass in x265.

[zoidberg]

UHD blu rays are hardware encoded with top gear, still people complain about artifacts a lot.

[Doctor M]

To clarify, x265 is a project for an encoder that is based on the H.265/HEVC format.

Unless you have access to commercial encoders, x265 is about the only easily available option, and like I said before, it's not great (yet). x264 produces better results, but of course isn't nearly as efficient.
It should also be pointed out that x264's 10-bit format (Hi10P) isn't a good solution either. It hits processors hard and there is little hardware accelerated support for it.

If you have no other need to re-encode besides a dislike for the VC-1 codec, I'd say try to live with it. There is nothing to be gained elsewhere.

[spoRv]

Well, Hybrid uses these encoders:

x265, kvazaar, DivX265, nvencc, qsvencc, vceencc, ffmpeg nvenc

I wonder if there is one (or more) better than x265, or, if the same quality, faster...

[Doctor M]

I thought I read that ffmpeg is using x265 (or at least a fork of it).