H.265 HEVC

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What is H.265 / HEVC?

H.265 is a highly efficient encoding method. It offers substantially improved encoding efficiency over H.264, which itself offered breakthrough efficiency. The additional efficiency in encoding provided by the H.265 is between 25% and 50% over H.264; in some tests the efficiency improvement is far greater. H.265 is called HEVC for High Efficiency Video Coding, as it can more efficiently produce far greater video clarity of moving images at the same bitrates or storage volume of H.264. The tradeoff for this is that H.265 requires more computing power to process

Why is H.265 Important?

The importance of H.265, in itself, is that it is a highly efficient method of compressing video. The impact of H.265 is multiplied by other factors as well such as significantly increasing computing power of computer workstations, tablets and smart phones. These advances in computing power allow the cost of H.265’s computational demands, which can be quite high, to be minimized if not negated over time. Additionally, higher speed data communications 5G cellular networking will multiply the effect of High Efficiency Video Encoding as it will reduce the latency of transmission for live video.

Taken together there is a convergence of technologies that are advancing the quality of video in modern modern media. The elements of this convergence are:

• 1. H.265/HEVC’s improved efficiency over H.264 and prior codecs
• 2. Massive advances in computing power of user devices, workstations, tablets and phones
• 3. Higher speed communications networking with 5G and beyond

These technology advances will structurally and permanently allow higher quality, near real time video encoding, transport and end-user delivery. H.265 is a structural and permanent enhancement to live video conferencing, streaming and archiving.

H.265 in Webcasting and Videoconferencing

H.265/HEVC is widely used and can be found in applications broadly. As of July, 2020, most popular browsers support HEVC and this will likely continue. There is a new and substantially better compression method (adopted in July of 2020) called H.266 / Versatile Video Coding (VVC) that, yet again, promises better efficiency by up to 50% over H.265/HEVC.

In each advancement of compression technology, there is a corresponding cost in computing demand on devices whether in the cloud, at the browser and in hardware. Advances in related technologies have a direct impact on adoption of each new standard. With this in mind, widespread adoption of new video compression techniques (like H.265/HEVC) require parallel advances in computing power of end user devices. It is the availability of hardware which supports new encoding methods that gives long life to standards such as the H.264.

H.264 has given us a window into the lifespan of a compression standard and it is 20 years. H.264 is used broadly and its operating characteristics and storage requirements are well known by video editors, so its use is continuing. It is likely that H.264 (adopted as a standard in 2003) will be widely in service through its 20th year, in 2023. H.265, which is just now being adopted broadly will likely enjoy a similarly wide acceptance and longevity in Webcasting and Videoconferencing. H.265 became a standard in 2015 and so we can reasonably expect that it will soon be included in many hardware platforms. If the history of H.264 is any guide, then H.265/HEVC will likely be widely used for the next 15 years.