The H.265 codec brings Ultra HDTV resolution in 2013

A new video codec is about to come in town, bringing a "Ultra" high-definition resolution that's 16 times larger than the standard "Full HD" resolution of nowadays' TV sets.

Just got a new, shiny 50” Full HD (1080p) TV set for your home video needs? Prepare to purchase something newer, shinier and with a much, much higher resolution soon. The Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding reached a new milestone for the H.265 video codec during the past week, and is about to unleash the new “monster” video standard within the next year.

The H.265 video codec, also known as High Efficiency Video Coding or HEVC, is being designed to replace the current H.264 standard used for high definition and Full HD (1920x1080) video encoding and decoding. The Joint Collaborative Team, a collaboration effort between the MPEG Expert Group and ITU-T, has just achieved a “committee draft” in a meeting in San Jose.

The new video standard is expected to provide a huge difference in data transmission and streaming efficiency compared to the previous one, with one of the speakers present at the meeting suggesting a 67% improvement.

H.265 will be designed to support new, still to be created video delivery and streaming technologies from day one, including devices working at 4K and Ultra HDTV (also known as 8K or 4320p) resolutions. Just to put things in perspective, the Ultra HDTV definition contains about 16 times the amount of pixels present in a 1080p video stream.

Before appearing on the market as a proper video standard, H.265 will have to achieve two more milestones: the draft international standard meeting is expected to be held within six months from now and the final standard ratification should arrive in January 2013.

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