Introduction

Abstract

The new HEVC standard enables a major advance in compression relative to its predecessors, and its development was a large collaborative effort that distilled the collective knowledge of the whole industry and academic community into a single coherent and extensible design. This book collects the knowledge of some of the key people who have been directly involved in developing or deploying the standard to help the community understand the standard itself and its implications. A detailed presentation is provided for each of the standard’s fundamental building blocks and how they fit together to make HEVC the powerful package that it is. The compression performance of the standard is analyzed, and architectures for its implementation are described. We believe this book provides important information for the community to help ensure the broad success of HEVC as it emerges in a wide range of products and applications. The applications for HEVC will not only cover the space of the well-known current uses and capabilities of digital video—they will also include the deployment of new services and the delivery of enhanced video quality, such as the deployment of ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) and video with higher dynamic range, a wider range of representable color, and greater representation precision than what is typically found today.