High Efficiency Video Coding

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High Efficiency Video Coding ( HEVC ), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2 , is a standard for encoding of video content and pictures. It is the successor to the H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC standard and competes with VP9 , Daala and AV1 . H.265 / HEVC is a joint development of the ISO / IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and the ITU-TVideo Coding Experts Group (VCEG). MPEG and VCEG set up a joint working group with the “Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC)” to develop the HEVC standard. The aim was to achieve twice as much compression as compared to H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC while maintaining the same quality. In addition, H.265 / HEVC can scale from 320 × 240 pixels ( QVGA ) up to 8192 × 4320 pixels including Ultra High Definition Television 2 (UHD-2) and 8K .

Applications are, for example, the transmission of ultra-high-definition television programs , entertainment electronics ( Blu-ray Disc players with 4K resolution, camcorders ) or streaming offers. The codec is also used for the terrestrial distribution of content in HD ( DVB-T2 ) in Germany.

history

Starting in 2004, the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) was investigating ways to improve the compression of videos compared to H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC. In January 2005 the VCEG defined key areas (KTA, Key Technical Areas) for further investigations. VCEG developed reference software to test improvements in these key areas. The "Joint Model Reference Software" was used as the basis for this, which was created by the MPEG & VCEG Joint Video Team as the basis for the H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC standard. The newly integrated techniques were tested in experimental evaluations over the next four years.

There were two possible approaches for standardizing the improved compression technology: defining a new standard or creating extensions to H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC. The project was tentatively named H.265 and H.NGVC (Next-Generation Video Coding) and was a large part of VCEG's work until it was developed in the H.265 / HEVC joint project with MPEG in 2010. The name H .265 was primarily intended for the possible creation of a new standard.

  • February 2012: Committee Draft (full draft of the standard)
  • July 2012: Draft international standard
  • January 25, 2013: Confirmation as standard by the ITU

At the end of 2014, Samsung presented the first compact system camera, the NX1 , that could record video recordings in this standard on a memory card.

Efficiency

The preliminary requirements for NGVC were a bit rate reduction of 25 percent and a reduction in complexity by 50 percent while maintaining the same subjective image quality compared to H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC High Profile. The efficiency of the HEVC codec is mainly achieved by changing the block sizes during compression. If H.264 divided the image into blocks of 16 × 16 pixels so that they could be viewed separately, HEVC can choose between block sizes of 4 × 4 and 64 × 64, which is particularly advantageous for large images. In the case of videos, the so-called transform blocks are now available in four sizes instead of the previous two, which are used for image areas that do not change in the video of successive frames, and only change their position, such as when panning the camera.

Profiles

In contrast to H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, the draft for H.265 / HEVC adopted in January 2013 only defines the three profiles Main, Main10 and MainStillPicture. The main profile of the HEVC codec is roughly comparable to the progressive high profile of the H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC codec.

In addition to the draft standard by HEVC, the development of future extensions for HEVC has started, such as the Scalable Video Coding (SVC) and the Multiview Video Coding Extension (MV-HEVC).

Levels (tiers) and levels

The HEVC standard defines two levels (main tier and high tier) and different levels. The "main tier" has been designed for most applications, while the "high tier" will only be used for very demanding applications. The levels define the requirements for a corresponding decoder and encoder, i.e. which maximum resolution and frame rate it can decode or encode. An appropriately designed hardware decoder that can decode a certain tier / level combination must always be able to decode all lower tiers and levels below.

For all levels lower than level 4, only the "main tier" is specified for the HEVC codec.

Tiers and levels with the maximum specified property values
Level Maximum number
of luma pixels per 		Max. Data rate for
Main and Main 10
profiles (Mbit / s) 		Examples of
resolution @ frame rate
(MaxDpbSize)
Second
MP / s 		Frame
MP / frame
Main tier High tier
1 0000.55296 00.036864 000.128 0256 × 144 0@ 15 0(6)
0128 × 96 @ 45 (16) 000
2 0003.6864 00.12288 001.5 0480 × 256 0@ 30 0(6)
0352 × 240 0@ 43 0(8)
2.1 0007.3728 00.24576 003 0640 × 384 0@ 30 0(6)
0352 × 288 0@ 72 0(14)
3 0016.5888 00.55296 006th 0960 × 540 0@ 32 0(6)
0720 × 576 0@ 40 0(8)
3.1 0033.1776 00.98304 010 1280 × 768 0@ 33.7 0(6)
0960 × 540 0@ 63 0(6)
4th 0066.84672 02.228224 012 030th 1280 × 720 0@ 72 0(14)
1920 × 1080 @ 32 0(6)
2048 × 1080 @ 30 0(6)
4.1 0133.69344 020th 050 1280 × 720 0@ 144 (14)
1920 × 1080 @ 64 0(6)
2048 × 1080 @ 60 0(6)
5 0267.38688 08.912896 025th 100 1920 × 1080 @ 128 (16)
3840 × 2160 @ 32 0(6)
4096 × 2160 @ 30 0(6)
5.1 0534.77376 040 160 1920 × 1080 @ 256 (16)
3840 × 2160 @ 64 0(6)
4096 × 2160 @ 60 0(6)
5.2 1069,54752 060 240 1920 × 1080 @ 300 (16)
3840 × 2160 @ 128 (6)
4096 × 2160 @ 120 (6)
6th 1069,54752 35.651584 060 240 3840 × 2160 @ 128 (16)
7680 × 4320 @ 32 0(6)
8192 × 4320 @ 30 0(6)
6.1 2139.09504 120 480 3840 × 2160 @ 256 (16)
7680 × 4320 @ 64 0(6)
8192 × 4320 @ 60 0(6)
6.2 4278,19008 240 800 3840 × 2160 @ 300 (16)
7680 × 4320 @ 128 (6)
8192 × 4320 @ 120 (6)

Remarks (English Notice):

  1. ↑ The maximum frame rate supported by the HEVC codec is 300 frames per second (300 fps ).
  2. ↑ The buffer for the decoded images (MaxDpbSize) is six images for each level and the respective maximum resolution. If the resolution for the corresponding level is not fully used, that is, "Max luma picture size" is significantly smaller than specified for the corresponding level, the buffer can be increased to a maximum of 16 images.

Better Portable Graphics (BPG)

Better Portable Graphics ( BPG ) is an image format developed by Fabrice Bellard in 2014 from the HEVC standard for storing digital still images. It is a container format that uses the HEVC Main 4: 4: 4 16 Still Picture format with up to 14 bits. Similar to the JPEG format , BPG also supports the color subsampling 4: 4: 4, 4: 2: 2, and 4: 2: 0. The suggested filename extension is .bpg . The .bpg images are displayed in a browser using a JavaScript application in an HTML canvas element.

Patents and costs

Similar to the previous standard H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, numerous companies have patent claims on H.265 / HEVC. Use thus requires payment of patent fees to MPEG LA and other patent owners or administrators. At the beginning of 2014, MPEG LA stipulated relatively moderate license conditions: Use was free of charge for up to 100,000 devices per year, only then 20 US cents per device were due, capped at 25 million US dollars per company and year. The HEVC-coded content should be free of license fees, but only with regard to the patents administered by MPEG LA. In the European Union , software patents are not considered valid, so software solutions like the VLC media player (at least according to the VideoLAN organization) do not require a license for HEVC. Currently 60% of these patents have expired or are no longer valid.

At the beginning of 2015, however, companies that do not want to be represented by MPEG LA formed a patent pool called HEVC Advance. This demanded additional fees of up to $ 1.5 from the first device. In addition, everyone who makes sales with H.265 content should derive 0.5 percent of their revenues from it.

As a result, a group of companies formed the Alliance for Open Media to develop license-free video codecs.

In February 2016, Technicolor left the HEVC Advance Pool to enable direct licensing of its patents. This made the licensing situation even more confusing. From March 2017, another pool called Velos Media appeared with demands for further license fees. The situation was not better at the beginning of 2018 either.

The Alliance for Open Media established its first codec under the name AV1 in March 2018 . The image quality should be up to 30% better than with HEVC. Shortly before, the HEVC Advance Pool had removed its content usage fee requirements and reduced other license fees.

Implementations

So far, there are two free encoders for HEVC, x265 and Kvazaar , under the name SVT-HEVC, Intel is developing (since September 2018 also public) another encoder with a special focus on real-time scenarios and certain processors, which in the future can also be called as an option within X265 should. The libde265 is a free decoder with its own video player for HEVC.

Further implementations from the test HEVC Codec Comparison - 2015! :

  • f265 H.265 encoder
  • Intel MSS HEVC (GAcc) as (software and GPU)
  • Ittiam HEVC hardware encoder
  • Strongene Lentoid HEVC Encoder
  • SHBP H.265 real time encoder

Tests (as of 2019)

In measurements by the University of Moscow in 2015, the x265 encoder, which was the best at the time, had only a 20% lower data stream than its predecessor x264 compared to H.265 and H.264 with the same image quality and was therefore only 25% better in the MSU test. However, this is also due to the further development of the x264 codec with strong improvements from the X.265 ideas.

The goal of improving the compression of H.265 by 50% compared to H.264 is not generally achieved, but depends on various factors such as the resolution anyway.

Due to the adaptation to Intel CPUs, the Intel Encoder MSS is considerably faster in creating the H.265 files and achieved similarly small amounts of data in the MSU test.

In the 2019 test, some encoders overtook x265 due to more computing effort. Up to 40% better than x264 are improved encoders such as HW265.

In the test with other codec competitors such as VP9 and its successor AV1, these were in part passed.

Versatile video coding

In October 2015, ITU-T VCEG and ISO / IEC MPEG founded a new working group, the Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET), to develop a new standard for video compression that, among other things, further improves coding efficiency. This is known as the Versatile Video Coding Standard or H.266. A first draft for this was presented in April 2018. The development is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. The bit rate should be reduced by 50% compared to HEVC.

literature

  • Mathias Wien: High Efficiency Video Coding: Coding Tools and Specification. Springer, 2014, ISBN 978-3-662-44275-3 .
  • Jens-Rainer Ohm : Even more efficient, please. The upcoming video compression standard High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). In: c't . No. 14, 2012, pp. 174-179.
  • Gary J. Sullivan , Jens-Rainer Ohm, Woo-Jin Han, Thomas Wiegand : Overview of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Standard . In: IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology . tape 22 , no. 12 , 2012 ( online [PDF; 4.2 MB ; accessed on December 1, 2012]).
  • Jens-Rainer Ohm , Gary Sullivan , Heiko Schwarz, Thiow Keng Tan, Thomas Wiegand : Comparison of the Coding Efficiency of Video Coding Standards - Including High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) . In: IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology . tape 22 , no. 12 , 2012 ( online [PDF; 6.3 MB ; accessed on December 1, 2012]).
  • Tilo Strutz: Image data compression - basics, coding, wavelets, JPEG, MPEG, H.264, HEVC. 5th edition, SpringerVieweg, 2017, ISBN 978-3-8348-1427-2 , pages 313-345

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ ITU TSB: Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding . ITU-T . April 23, 2010. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
  2. ↑ GJ Sullivan, J.-R. Ohm, W.-J. Han, T. Wiegand: Overview of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Standard (pre-publication draft) (PDF; 4.2 MB) IEEE Trans. On Circuits and Systems for Video Technology. December 1, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  3. ↑ Quad-core SoC supports Android 4.0, 3840 × 1080 video resolution ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archive.linuxgizmos.com
  4. ↑ J.-R. Ohm, GJ Sullivan, H. Schwarz, TK Tan, T. Wiegand: Comparison of the Coding Efficiency of Video Coding Standards - Including High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) (pre-publication draft) (PDF; 6.3 MB) IEEE Trans on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology. December 1, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  5. ↑ Markus Weidner: DVB-T2 in full HD: Official start on March 29, 2017. Accessed on June 26, 2016 .
  6. ↑ heise.de: DVB-T2: Only real with logo . As of June 10, 2015.
  7. ↑ T. Wedi, TK Tan, AHG report - Coding Efficiency Improvements , VCEG document VCEG-AA06, October 2005.
  8. ↑ Draft meeting report for 31st VCEG Meeting (Marrakech, MA, January 15–16, 2007; MS Word ; 152 kB)
  9. ^ New video codec to ease pressure on global networks . January 25, 2013. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  10. ↑ ITU releases video standard H.265 January 26, 2013, Golem.de
  11. ↑ Photokina report day 1 - the Samsung NX1 (4K mirrorless camera with H.265) , EOSHD from September 16, 2014, accessed on September 17, 2018
  12. ↑ a b c Benjamin Bross et al: High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) text specification draft 10 (for FDIS & Consent) . MPEG Document Management System, January 17, 2013
  13. ↑ HEVC alias H.265 twice as efficient as H.264 August 16, 2012, Golem.de
  14. ↑ BPG Image format . Fabrice Bellard. 2014. Accessed December 23, 2014.
  15. ↑ Stephen Shankland: HEVC, a new weapon in codec wars, to appear in September , CNET, August 22, 2012
  16. ↑ Wayback Machine. January 24, 2014, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Stephen Shankland: VLC steps into next-gen video wars with VP9, ​​HEVC support , CNET, November 15, 2013
  18. ↑ https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/hevc-att1.pdf
  19. ↑ Ferdinand Thommes: New patent pool calls for higher fees for H.265 , Pro-Linux, July 27, 2015
  20. ↑ Technicolor Withdraws From The HEVC Advance Pool To Enable Direct Licensing Of Its HEVC IP Portfolio | Technicolor. Retrieved November 10, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Third HEVC Patent Pool Launches With Ericsson, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sharp & Sony - Dan Rayburn - StreamingMediaBlog.com . In: Dan Rayburn - StreamingMediaBlog.com . May 30, 2017 ( streamingmediablog.com [accessed November 12, 2018]).
  22. ^ Jan Ozer: The Future of HEVC Licensing Is Bleak, Declares MPEG Chairman . In: Streaming Media Magazine . January 31, 2018 ( streamingmedia.com [accessed November 11, 2018]).
  23. ↑ Jan Ozer: AV1 Beats VP9 and HEVC on Quality, if You've Got Time, says Moscow State . In: Streaming Media Magazine . January 30, 2018 ( streamingmedia.com [accessed August 5, 2018]).
  24. ↑ HEVC Advance cuts usage fees for content distribution and reduces certain license fees and caps . In: presseportal.de . ( presseportal.de [accessed November 8, 2018]).
  25. ↑ x265
  26. ↑ Kvaazar
  27. ↑ intel / SVT-HEVC. Retrieved November 2, 2018 .
  28. ↑ by: x265 and SVT-HEVC in the same house. In: x265. February 19, 2019, Retrieved April 1, 2019 (American English).
  29. ↑ libde265 - a free h.265 implementation (LGPL)
  30. ↑ Dirk Farin: open h.265 codec implementation
  31. ↑ HEVC Codec Comparison - 2015! Retrieved April 22, 2016 .
  32. ↑ PDF 4K HEVC Codec Comparison - 2015! (PDF) Retrieved April 22, 2016 .
  33. ↑ PDF HD HEVC Codec Comparison - 2015! (PDF) Retrieved April 22, 2016 .
  34. ↑ Intel Media Server Studio HEVC Codec Scores Fast Transcoding Title. Retrieved April 22, 2016 .
  35. ↑ http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/hevc_2019/
  36. ↑ http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/hevc_2019/#hq_report_summary
  37. ↑ http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/hevc_2019/download/high_quality_report_enterprise/MSU_HQ_Video_Codec_Comparison_Report_2019_enterprise.pdf
  38. ↑ JVET - Joint Video Experts Team. Retrieved August 16, 2018 (American English).
  39. ↑ Versatile Video Coding | MPEG. Retrieved on August 16, 2018 .
  40. ↑ ITU: Beyond HEVC: Versatile Video Coding project starts strongly in Joint Video Experts Team . In: ITU News . April 27, 2018 ( itu.int [accessed August 16, 2018]).
  41. ↑ Fraunhofer HHI shows the latest video technologies at IBC . ( innovations-report.com [accessed November 5, 2018]).