Next Gen Video Compression Format H.265 Demoed By NTT Docomo

For a long time now, the H.264 video compression format has been the standard online. When it was first announced, people marveled over the quality that they were able to stream movie and video content from the Internet. Compression algorithms are constantly reworked and refined in order to bring us even better quality using less bandwidth. NTT Docomo recently announced their new video compression format called H.265 which shows a significant quality increase.

The H.265, or as it is more commonly called HEVC, was approved by ITU and ISO on January 25th. According to NTT Docomo, they have tried to make this the standard video compression format since the format was proposed as a standard back in 2007. We could of course question why the switch hasn’t been made until now. Without further information, the lack of processing power of previous devices could have played a big part in HEVC not becoming a the standard video compression format until now.

There’s no doubt the HEVC compression format provides a significant quality increase over the previous H.264 format. Compared side by side, there’s no question which format should be used as the standard today. The video compression format is a vital part of viewing video streamed from the Internet, and the HEVC compression format will become a welcome boost in quality for all online movie streaming services as well as the almighty YouTube. Well, that is if they are smart enough to switch out their current format for something that could potentially increase their look and feel quite a bit.

NTT Docomo will start licensing the HEVC compression format codec software for Full HD on smartphones in March of 2013. The big decrease in compression data also eliminates delays and drop-outs due to lack of processing speed, enabling smooth, real-time video. This is something that has become quite common on services like YouTube for example. Compressing a video on a computer lacking the processor speed usually yields a choppy video. It sometimes even makes the video go all black. As I said, the HEVC compression format will remedy all the side effects of a slow processor thanks to its efficient way of handling compressed data.