This new video “standard” will cut file sizes in half whilst maintaining quality

Farai Mudzingwa Avatar

There is a new video codec on the block! Versatile Video Codec (H.266/VVC) standard has been finalised and this will be a big deal. The video standard was developed by Fraunhofer HHI together with partners from industry including Apple, Ericsson, Intel, Huawei, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Sony over 3 years.

What are they promising?

  • This new standard offers improved compression, which reduces data requirements by around 50% of the bit rate relative to the previous standard H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) without compromising visual quality.
  • Overall, H.266/VVC provides efficient transmission and storage of all video resolutions from SD to HD up to 4K and 8K, while supporting high dynamic range video and omnidirectional 360° video.

What does this mean to the laymen? If a video on an older codec required you to use 400Mb to stream/download at HD quality it will now use around 200Mb at the same HD quality.

Through a reduction of data requirements, H.266/VVC makes video transmission in mobile networks (where data capacity is limited) more efficient. For instance, the previous standard H.265/HEVC requires ca. 10 gigabytes of data to transmit a 90-min UHD video. With this new technology, only 5 gigabytes of data are required to achieve the same quality.

Impact

This is huge deal for us in Africa where internet access is limited because of the cost of data. A number of benefits that immediately come to mind include video content creators requiring less data and storage drives to store video projects.

For consumers, it will also cost less to watch more – meaning whether its educational, entertainment or whatever type of video content you’re streaming/downloading you’ll require less data/storage.

When can we expect this video standard to start rolling out?

Well, the publishing of the software to support H.266/VVC will be done between September and December but the chips to support the video codec are still in development.

3 comments

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  1. Tinashe Nyahasha

    A big deal indeed!

  2. Lee Masuka

    Good stuff!

  3. Greyhair

    Great news, indeed

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