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Streaming video is the future. Well, it’s the present, but the future too. And as resolutions increase, it’s going to be a tougher and tougher proposition to pipe all that data to your screen of choice in a timely fashion. Fortunately, the new H.265 standard has been approved by the ITU and it’s here to help.
Also known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), the H.265 standard should make HD video streaming easier and could make even UHD (formerly known as 4K) streaming feasible whenever that becomes a thing that people have the content to stream and devices to watch it on. Ideally, new compression techniques that come along with the h.265 standard should make 1080p streaming possible while only requiring about half as much of the data that’s required today.
On top of making it easier to stream increasingly high definition content, the new standard should also make it easier to stream stuff on less-than-zippy networks, bringing higher quality video content to mobile devices with less of a wait on buffering.
But of course, the effects won’t be instant. Sure, software encoders are imminent, but we won’t really start reaping the benefits until the standard gets adopted down in the chips. H.265 won’t be able to shoulder the whole load of increasingly mammoth streaming video, but it should be able to lend a hand, and that’s worth something at least. [ITU via Engadget]
Image by XYZ/Shutterstock
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What’s with “High Efficiency Video Coding” though? H.265 is a good enough name. H.264 was a good enough name. Why not call it the NEW BEST STREAMING VIDEO EVER!! Because it’s not like they’re going to invent another standard under the H.266 umbrella and need to think of another name.
And who chose this name? Surely any new collection of compression algorithms considers itself to be “high efficiency”? That’s a given, surely?
I should probably have some coffee and chill the fuck out.
i like this comment, its like the FULL HD, Ultra HD naming.. er.. so what next.. “Even fuller ultra hd”?? lol
What do you mean by “down in the chips” are you talking about the CPU`s etc..?
TBH, i can see this being a change quite quick, with the likes of FlipFactory, Carbon Coder and Digital Rapids supplying most of the streaming industry, they will want to make this change to give them selling power as the VOD industry grows and grows. H.264 is a great standard, but there are new Mpeg developments and even rumour of new MP4 standards to allow higher res. So to make a move to H.265 would be good. MKV is a great codec but seems to only live in the world of piracy and despite being a high res and great colour etc.. its reasonably beefy. Nothing compared to iTunes supplier spec for HD which comes out at 50GB per 45mins.. and its not even pretty considering the files size..