The Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) met last month to discuss a new standard for video compression and transmission. This new standard, called High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) will enable compression at close to twice the amount seen in the current H264 format. This means that you can achieve the same picture quality using only half as much room.
This new standard will help transmission of videos across the net, taking far less bandwidth than current formats and enabling new video services. According to Ericsson Research, by 2015, 90% of the traffic on the internet will be video, so this large increase in compression capability is a welcome development.
The new HEVC format could be seen in mobile transmissions as soon as next year, so the development of this new video format is progressing very quickly. But HEVC will have the same problems with royalties that H264 has now, and those licensing entanglements have slowed adoption of H264 as a universally accepted format. HEVC may have as many as 500 patents that apply to various parts of the standard.
HEVC will also be able to produce ultra-high definition video, which will be designated 4320p (7680 x 4320). It is also known as 8K. Contrast this to current high definition standards, which are commonly 1080p (1920 x 1080) or 720p (1280 x 720). Of course, we'll need new televisions and other devices to support this type of video.
You can read about the draft for the new HEVC standard here.
