New Announcements for Encoding
Fraunhofer HHI (Heinrich Hertz Institute) today announced their new H.266 codec, also known as the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) codec. The H.266 standard being the result of three years of hard work from Fraunhofer HHI and its partners.
The H.266 codec promises to maintain the visual quality of the current H.265 codec, also known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), with its enhanced video compression algorithm. But at an about 50% smaller file size.
That would make H.266 perfect for efficiently transporting high-resolution content from one platform to another. Such as 4K or 8K media, through mobile networks will be easy.
What is Codec?
Codecs are like the oxygen powerhouse of the streaming media market. If there are no codecs, there will be no streaming media. From very minute details of shooting video to editing to encoding our streaming media files for delivery.
Codecs are involved in every step of the way of recording to streaming. Many video producers also touch the DVD-ROM and Blu-ray markets with codec, as well as in broadcast.
Features about H.266
Adding to this, the H.266 codec also supports HDR content and 360-degree
videos.
Let’s give a thought to a 90-minute 4K video. It consumes up to space of 10GB with the current H.265 codec. According to Fraunhofer HHI’s figures, the same video with an identical level of quality on H.265 codec, would only require 5GB of space with H.266. The transition from H.265 to H.266 could indeed be a quantum jump if the latter can deliver on its promise just announced.
Fraunhofer HHI in its press release said that the CPUs required for H.266, especially the mobile chips required, are still under development. This suggests that content used with H.266 will require a hefty amount of firepower to encode or decode your content. However, encoding might not be a big deal if you’re not a content creator, since most of us more likely to consume H.266 content than create it.
Date of Availability
Head of the Video Coding and Analytics department at Fraunhofer HHI, Dr. Thomas Schierl, stated that this by this autumn Fraunhofer HHI will publish the first software (for both encoder and decoder) to support H.266/VVC.