H.266/VVC Standard Finalized With ~50% Lower Size Compared To H.265

[phoronix]

Phoronix: H.266/VVC Standard Finalized With ~50% Lower Size Compared To H.265

The Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard is now firmed up as H.266 as the successor to H.265/HEVC...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=H.266-VVC-July-2020

[sykobee]

Would be interesting to see an article tracking the generated file sizes of all the video compression algorithms from back in the day, although MPEG1,2 probably can't do 4K and these newer ones are probably more efficient at the higher resolutions. I'm constantly amazed at each generation's advances.

"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."

Looks like we can move back to plain old DVD as a storage medium from BluRay!

[darkbasic]

Honestly, does it even matter anymore? The standard itself may be as good as you want, but with H.265 implementations lagged alot compared to the already heavily optimized x264, while almost nobody wants to jump on that train because of software patents. With H.266 it will be even harder to gain consensus because broadcast and physical medias are slowly dying.

[bug77]

It will be interesting to see meanwhile what open-source solutions materialize. Similarly, how H.266 ultimately stacks up against the royalty-free AV1.

We already know AV1 does not offer the same quality as h265 at half the bitrate

[darkbasic]

We already know AV1 does not offer the same quality as h265 at half the bitrate

They said the same about H265 compared to H264 and it didn't achieve anything like that.

[uid313]

~50% lower size means ~50% more power to decode it, and ~150% more power to encode it?

[ALRBP]

Would be interesting to see an article tracking the generated file sizes of all the video compression algorithms from back in the day, although MPEG1,2 probably can't do 4K and these newer ones are probably more efficient at the higher resolutions. I'm constantly amazed at each generation's advances.

I see no reason why MPEG1-2 could not be used for 4K. The files will be indecently huge and this probably won't fit any use case but there is no reason why it could not work (I tried 4K60 with MPEG-2, it works, but a 158Mio VP9 video became 418Mio). Now, comparing generated file size at equal quality for different codecs is hard, because "quality" is subjective, even though some objective metrics exists, they aren't perfect.

[jonsmirl]

It is just going to be another patent royalty train wreck like h.265. There is just something fundamentally wrong with being able to spend $20M on a patent fortress, insert that fortress into a standard, then sit back and collect a $1B in royalties. Qualcomm is another good example of this. Why use a free technology when you can put a similar, patented one into the standard! I have no problem paying reasonable returns on R&D, 1000 to 1 is not a reasonable return.

[jonsmirl]

They said the same about H265 compared to H264 and it didn't achieve anything like that.

For 1080P H265 gains little to nothing. On 4K it gains about 30%.

[grigi]

I'm certain that up to 50% reduction is for 8k content, and for mere FHD content it will probably only be a ~15% reduction.

Still, even if it only meets AV1, it will be a success, because these codecs are adopted as a means of control. The more fuzzy we can make the encoding legal landscape, the more options we have to use law/litigation as a means to enforce control. The more control we have, the more ways we can get away with monetizing it in all ways.