TECHNICAL
Introduction
a solid choice for providing longevity and futureproofing those applications. For instance, broadcast television adopted HEVC for the Digital Video Broadcasting DVB-T2 standard, now on air in several European countries. Supported by consumer devices Lastly, semiconductor providers utilise elements of HEVC’s design that allows for parallel processing. This makes it the more efficient compression algorithm during encode for capturing HD and 4K video from devices such as smartphones, tablets, and VR headsets, which today utilise multi-core CPUs. In fact, much of the underlying commonality coupled with extension of the methods used in AVC allowed semiconductor vendors to rapidly innovate silicon solutions. This is a primary reason why hardware accelerated HEVC decoders quickly became widely available across entertainment focused consumer electronics products. Continuous development
Greater efficiency
HEVC achieves significantly better compression than its predecessor, enabling storage of video using smaller file sizes. This makes HEVC a far better choice for streaming and downloading content over the Internet because it reduces data bandwidth requirements, speeds up video transfers, and further helps optimise cloud storage costs for streaming service providers. At the equivalent bitrate to AVC, HEVC provides enhanced video quality. This affords streaming service providers the opportunity to maintain a higher level of visual clarity even when using the same amount of data. Furthermore, each video can be encoded at multiple bitrates. As a result, viewers enjoy sharper and more realistic video experiences at higher resolutions without a necessity to increase data and bandwidth requirements. Future proofed HEVC targets 4K resolution and frame rates up to 300 frames per second. This is significantly beyond the existing baselines for broadcasting, streaming, and home video, effectively making HEVC
Since the standard was finalised a decade ago, HEVC has been on a slow but steady journey to become one of the leading video codecs. HEVC’s adoption may not have been as rapid as the developers of the codec originally anticipated. Nevertheless, there is evidence that adoption of the codec is now expanding, partly due to the news last year that Google had added native support for HEVC video decoding in its Chrome web browser, mirroring Apple’s continued support for HEVC in Safari. This adoption has provided a considerable impetus to HEVC and its prospects of becoming the first choice for developers and content creators. Indeed, this decision convinced other browser developers to also follow a similar path. But beyond Google’s endorsement, one area of significant growth and interest in the implementation of HEVC is within the streaming industry. The largest video streaming services depend on advanced video compression to deliver ever higher quality content to consumers as efficiently as possible. HEVC’s ability to support ultra-high definition video means that it is particularly well placed to encode premium content on services from providers including Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple, Paramount and Warner Bros. Commissioned by InterDigital, researched and written by Futuresource Consulting, this white paper analyses the reach of HEVC within consumer devices, how the codec is enabling higher quality for subscribers, examines HEVC’s rise amongst the streaming giants, and explores what’s next for codecs within the rapidly evolving delivery of video content.
In common with other video standards, H.265/HEVC is not static and continues
Overview of HEVC Building upon a solid baseline
Commenced in 2004 and finalised in 2013, H.265/HEVC was jointly developed by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) as an immediate successor to H.264/AVC. The standard directly addressed the growing need for higher compression in broadcast and internet video streaming applications, defining a far more efficient codec designed for ultra-high definition (UHD) video use-cases. Furthermore, the new standard established support for 10- bit colour, essential for encoding high dynamic range (HDR) content.
Comparison between H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC
SEPTEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.3
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