H.266/VVC offers the same quality as H.265/HVEC at half the bit-rate

Fraunhofer HHI has officially revealed H.266/Versatile Video Codec (VVC), the successor to H.265/HVEC. This new video codec was designed through  Fraunhofer HHI’s partnership with companies like Apple, Ericsson, Intel, Huawei, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Sony, promising the same level of image quality as H.265/HVEC with half the bit-rate.  

With H.266/VVC, end-users will be able to access high-quality 4K and 8K content with HDR and lower storage and transmission requirements. VVC will allow video streaming services to deliver higher quality video streams at lower bitrates and deliver higher levels of image quality to high-end users. 

Whether it’s for higher quality video streams or lessening the storage requirements of high-quality video files, H.266 promises to have a huge impact on the world of video compression. That said, it is unknown when this new standard will become widely used by consumers.

While H,266 promised a lot, it must be remembered that it won’t become widely used until most modern electronics support the standard. This autumn,  Fraunhofer will release their first software encoder/decoder for H.266/VVC, though hardware accelerator chips are currently being designed. 

the H.265/HVEC was ratified back in early 2013, and widespread support for the standard hasn’t emerged until very recently. iOS gained support for HVEC back in 2017, the same year that Microsoft offered a free HVEC app on Windows 10. With this in mind, it could take years for hardware/software makers to release chips which support H.266 in silicon.