New video codec HEVC could halve file sizes

A new codec from the Moving Picture Experts Group (Mpeg) known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) could allow for vastly reduced file sizes for movies and videos – by as much as 50 per cent if claims from the group are to be believed. The potential for something like this is huge, as it makes ultra high resolutions like HD 4k and HD 8k more feasible.

Just three days ago, a draft was issued of the new standard of video compression, with the final draft expected to be ratified sometime in January. One of the people behind the draft event was Per Fröjdh, Manager for Visual Technology at Ericsson Research. He said that: “there’s a lot of industry interest in this because it means you can halve the bit rate and still achieve the same visual quality, or double the number of television channels with the same bandwidth, which will have an enormous impact on the industry.”

He also pointed out that mobiles would see a big increase in efficiency because of this codec. With a new compression format reducing bandwidth – something that is rather epxensive on the mobile spectrum – service providers should be able to offer move video based services to consumers.

However Fröjdh and his team aren't stopping with just traditional, two dimensional videos, but they're also working on improving the compression on 3D video. Once this has been achieved, it's expected that 3D glasses will be a thing of the past. Fröjdh thinks this will be standardised by 2014.

“Future 3D technology will have more advanced displays, which will enable different views,” he says. “The simpler versions of this technology will still just offer the two views we have today – left and right – without the need for glasses. But in the future, there will be many views next to each other, so you will simply move your head to the left or the right to give you a stereo impression of an object.”

KitGuru Says: Perhaps if 3D glasses could be done away with and the whole thing didn't set people back so much, 3D might be more of a selling point. As it stands though, I don't think many people care about 3D. It was a nice fad for Avatar but other than that, are people really that bothered?

Image source: CNET

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