The document discusses the H.265/HEVC video coding standard. It provides an overview of HEVC version 1.0 and its extensions, including its coding efficiency compared to prior standards. Studies show HEVC achieves 50% bitrate reduction over H.264/AVC for the same subjective quality. For low delay applications, HEVC requires 48-73% fewer bits than VP9 or H.264/AVC encoders. While reference encoders are slow, real-time encoders have approached the coding efficiency of the reference within 1.5 years. Future extensions include higher color depths, multiview, and scalable coding.

1. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Einsteinufer 37, 10587 Berlin www.hhi.fraunhofer.de
The H.265/MPEG-HEVC Standard
IMTC Annual Member Meeting – Redmond, WA, October 16, 2014

2. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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20.10.2014
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High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)
HEVC 1.0 – Low Delay Performance
HEVC 2.0 – The Extensions
HEVC Evolving fast
Summary & Outlook
Outline
Benjamin Bross

3. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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20.10.2014
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•Most recent joint video coding standard from ITU VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG: ITU-T Rec. H.265 ISO/IEC 23008-2 MPEG-H Part 2 HEVC
•Fraunhofer HHI contributed key techniques (Coding Block and Residual Quadtree, Prediction Block Merging, Transform Coding, CABAC,...)
•50% bitrate reduction compared to H.264/AVC High Profile
•Version 1 finalized in Jan. 2013 with 3 profiles (all 4:2:0): Main (8bit), Main 10 (10 bit), Main Still Picture
High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)
Benjamin Bross

4. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC 1.0 – Performance
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Benjamin Bross
What is the coding efficiency for different coding applications?
•Entertainment for TV/Movies (Broadcast, VoD, Storage)
Hierarchical B-pictures, structural delay, 1s random access
•Interactive for Videoconferencing
No picture reordering, low delay

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Several studies reporting bitrate savings of H.265/HEVC HM Reference Encoder for the same objective/subjective quality:
HEVC 1.0 – Performance
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Benjamin Bross
AVC HP
VP9
AVC HP
VP9
Encoder
Sequences
Objective [PSNR]
Subjective [MOS]
Objective [PSNR]
Subjective [MOS]
Objective [PSNR]
Objective [PSNR]
AVC
VP9
[1] Ohm2012
35%
49%
40%
JSVM
JCT-VC
[2] Grois2013
39%
43%
x264
WebM
JCT-VC
(Class A,B,E, F)
[3] Rerabek2014
39%
53%
36%
49%
JM
WebM
4K
[4] Grois2014
41%
33%
x264
WebM
JCT-VC
(Class E)
Entertainment (Random Access)
Interactive (Low Delay)

6. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
©
Several studies reporting bitrate savings of H.265/HEVC HM Reference Encoder for the same objective/subjective quality:
HEVC 1.0 – Performance
20.10.2014
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Benjamin Bross
AVC HP
VP9
AVC HP
VP9
Encoder
Sequences
Objective [PSNR]
Subjective [MOS]
Objective [PSNR]
Subjective [MOS]
Objective [PSNR]
Objective [PSNR]
AVC
VP9
[1] Ohm2012
35%
49%
40%
JSVM
JCT-VC
[2] Grois2013
39%
43%
x264
WebM
JCT-VC
(Class A,B,E, F)
[3] Rerabek2014
39%
53%
36%
49%
JM
WebM
4K
[4] Grois2014
41%
33%
x264
WebM
JCT-VC
(Class E)
Entertainment (Random Access)
Interactive (Low Delay)

7. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC 1.0 – Low Delay Performance
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Benjamin Bross
Low Delay performance study from Grois et al [4]:
•Tested publicly available encoders:
•H.265/HEVC  HM reference encoder
•H.264/AVC  x264 r2334
•VP9  WebM v1.2.0-3088-ga81bd12
•IPPP coding structure (I-picture followed by P-pictures)
•Three JCT-VC 720p60 class E test sequences

8. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC 1.0 – Low Delay Performance
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Benjamin Bross
•Encoder settings for a fair comparison:
•x264 settings for optimized PSNR
•VP9 settings recommended by Google
•VP9 not optimized for 1-pass  additional 2-pass results provided
•Constant quantizer with QP 22, 27, 32, 37  Bitrates from 0.2 to 4 Mbps
•Bitrate savings in Bjøntegaard Delta (BD) rate based on PSNR for the 4 rate points
Figure 2. 2-pass Encoding Mode: R-D curves and corresponding are representing different video conferencing scenarios.

9. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC 1.0 – Low Delay Performance
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Benjamin Bross
•For same objective quality (PSNR), VP9 and x264 have significant bitrate overhead:
•VP9 48% more than HM
•x264 73% more than HM
•2nd pass encoding does not gain much for low delay
•Runtime differences by factor ~103 between x264 and reference encoders (HM and VP9)
1
10
100
1000
10000
0
20
40
60
80
Encoding Speedup
Bitrate overhead to HEVC HM in BD-rate [%]
VP9 (1-pass)
VP9 (2-pass)
x264 (1-pass)
x264 (2-pass)

10. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC 1.0 – Low Delay Performance
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Benjamin Bross
Some thoughts on the software encoders used in the comparison...
•Only publicly available free encoders (reproducibility)
•2-pass encoding in VP9 faster than 1-pass encoding
•All three encoders represent different degrees of software optimizations
•Extremely slow reference implementations for HEVC and VP9
•(Commercial) real-time encoders optimized for low delay are expected to achieve the coding efficiency of reference encoders much faster than in the past  HEVC evolving fast

11. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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What comes after version 1?
The following HEVC extensions are already finalized or to be finalized:
•Range Extensions in April 2014
Higher bit-depths (>10bit), More chroma formats (4:4:4, 4:2:2),...
•Multiview (MV) in July 2014
•Scalable Coding in July 2014
•3D-HEVC (MV + Depth Data) to be finalized in 2015
HEVC 2.0 – The Extensions
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Benjamin Bross

12. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC Evolving fast (2013)
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Benjamin Bross
2015
January JCT-VC Meeting, Geneva
HEVC version 1 finalized
April.
NAB,
Las Vegas
September. IBC, Amsterdam
HHI 4K/UHD live SW decoder
HHI HD live SW encoder
2013
2014

13. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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HEVC Evolving fast (2014)
20.10.2014
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Benjamin Bross
2015
September. IBC, Amsterdam
2013
2014
February,
MWC,
Barcelona
HHI 4K/UHD live SW encoder
HHI HEVC over LTE
HHI Encoding in 4K/UHD 50p live soccer broadcast
April,
Allianz
Arena,
Munich
WWDC, Cupertino
iPhone 6 with H.265/HEVC En- /Decoder

14. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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•Several studies confirmed the 50% bitrate reduction compared to H.264/AVC with the HM reference encoder (same subjective quality)
•Significant bitrate reductions compared to H.264/AVC and VP9 also reported for low delay applications
•Only 1.5 years after finalization of HEVC, real-time encoders are approaching coding efficiency of the HM encoder
•Fraunhofer HHI continues research on HEVC real-time solutions like 4K/UHD high-efficiency encoder and HD low-delay encoder
HEVC Summary & Outlook
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Benjamin Bross

15. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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[1] Ohm et al, “Comparison of the Coding Efficiency of Video Coding Standards – Including High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) ”, IEEE Trans. CSVT, Dec. 2012
[2] Grois et al, “Performance comparison of H.265/MPEG-HEVC, VP9, and H.264/MPEG-AVC encoders”, PCS 2013
[3] Rerabek et al, “Comparison of compression efficiency between HEVC/H.265 and VP9 based on subjective assessments”, SPIE Proc. 9217, 2014
[4] Grois et al, “Comparative Assessment of H.265/MPEG-HEVC, VP9, and H.264/MPEG-AVC Encoders for Low-Delay Video Applications”, SPIE Proc. 9217, 2014
The H.265/MPEG-HEVC Standard
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Benjamin Bross

16. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
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Thank you very much!
Further Information:
benjamin.bross@hhi.fraunhofer.de
hevc.hhi.fraunhofer.de
The H.265/MPEG-HEVC Standard
20.10.2014
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Benjamin Bross