The next-gen High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard just adopted...
The next-gen High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard just adopted by the Motion Picture Experts Group will cut the bit rate needed to deliver high-quality video in half compared with the H.264 standard, the group said. The HEVC codec (H.265…
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or ISO/IEC 23008-2) was developed jointly with the Video Coding Experts Group of ITU-T Study Group 16, it said. HEVC includes three profiles. The “main profile” relates to mass-market consumer video products that require only eight bits of precision for processing, while the “main 10 profile” will support up to 10 bits of processing precision for applications needing higher quality, it said. The “main still picture profile” allows HEVC’s underlying technology to be used for still-image applications as well, MPEG said. HEVC advances the state of the art for still-picture coding, because video products can use it for still-picture photography and other purposes, it said. The current standard (H.264) “underpinned rapid progression and expansion of the video ecosystem, with many adopting it to replace their own proprietary compression codecs,” said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré. The new standard will be as effective as its predecessor in enabling the next wave of innovation, he said. MPEG has already started work on further enhancements to HEVC, it said after its Jan. 21-25 meeting in Geneva. Application range extensions will allow higher-resolution color for 3D and higher precision for video-processing applications. Extensions for 3D and multiview video coding will enable applications such as stereoscopic 3D TV. Extensions for scalable video coding will enable flexible extraction of subsets of the coded video content for direct use as lower bit-rate encodings of the same content. The first of the range extensions planned for HEVC will support HEVC video coding using alternative color formats such as the 4:4:4 “full color” format needed for high quality encoding of content that may include a mix of text, graphics and video, and the 4:2:2 horizontally sub-sampled color format used in many professional studio video applications, MPEG said. The group has also completed a new addition to the Advanced Video Coding standard for encoding multiview with depth maps, it said. Meanwhile, the Digital Media Project (DMP) announced the public availability of Open Connected TV software to enable TV services with two-way interoperable and multichannel content access and delivery. The OCTV software is broadly related to HEVC because TV, whether open and connected or not, still needs video, MPEG Chairman and DMP President Leonardo Chiariglione told us. That video could be HEVC as well as other standards, he said.