ITU-T wants video sizes to halve again by 2020

Boffins challenged to make H.265 compression look flabby

The International Telecommunications Union wants researchers to get busy on new video compression codecs, setting an ambitious target to double their squeezing compression power by 2020.

H.264 is probably today's most-used video codec, but the ITU-T's asking for experts to submit proposals to double-down on H.265 codec, also known as High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC), developed in 2013 and formally published in 2015.

The (deep breath) “Preliminary Joint Call for Evidence [CfE – Ed] on Video Compression with Capability beyond HEVC” asks for companies or organisations with suitable technology to get in touch with the Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET).

JVET is a collaboration between the ITU-T's Video Compression Experts Group (VCEG) and the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG). The group wants the new compression techniques to support a very wide range of use cases: “camera-view content, screen content, VR/360 video and high-dynamic-range video for such applications as broadcast (with live or pre-authored content), real-time video conferencing and video chat, on-demand viewing, storage-based media replay, consumer generated content, and surveillance with fixed or moving cameras”.

This CfE will be followed up by a further one in April. If the CfE process puts up a strong enough case, the ITU will follow it up with a call for proposals to let people get to work in earnest.

JVET reckons its early work on a Joint Exploration Model can improve compression capability by 30 per cent, but it suffers from high computational complexity. ®