H.266 codec standard released to replace H.265/HEVC: video clarity remains unchanged, data volume is halved

This week, Fraunhofer HHI officially announced the next-generation video codec standard H.266/VVC (Versatile Video Coding), which has received support from industry partners including Apple, Ericsson, Intel, Huawei, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Sony. The standard has been in development for more than three years and is mainly aimed at 4K and 8K services.

The detailed standard text is over 500 pages long, so I will only focus on the key points here.

Similar to when H.265/HEVC was introduced, H.266 further optimizes compression, which can save about 50% of data traffic while ensuring the clarity of video transmission. In simple terms, a 90-minute UHD 4K video encoded based on H.265 requires about 10GB, while based on H.266 it only requires 5GB.

It is reported that software supporting H.266/VVC decoding will appear later this year.

However, historically, HEVC has been adopted very slowly. The standard was signed in 2013, and Apple did not support it until iOS 11 in 2017. Today, H.264/AVC is still quite mainstream. Industry video experts pointed out that H.266/VCC is expected to be widely accepted and used around 2027.

In addition, in order to promote the prosperity of the global video industry, the MPEG organization is also promoting H.266/VVC and its two derivative standards MPEG-5 Part 1 (EVC) and MPEG-5 Part 2 (LCEVC). According to tests by the British organization, VVC has obvious advantages over the free competing standard AV1.