JAN. 11, 2021. Versatile Video Coding (VVC) – the new video compression coding standard, developed with major contributions from Ericsson, is an important step forward. This new codec will cut the bitrate roughly in half, greatly reducing the load of video traffic on networks without sacrificing quality and delivering a more seamless experience for users across devices.
VVC will free up networks to not only handle traffic from cutting edge technologies like mixed reality – AR and VR applications that have the potential to transform everything from city planning, to education, to gaming – but also to deal with the increased amount of video conferencing and remote collaborative tools in our new COVID-19 reality. Alternatively, it could enhance the user experience by delivering significantly higher quality video at the same bitrate.
Showing leadership with the standards body
Video coding standards work in a similar fashion to mobile wireless standards, where stakeholders from different companies and other groups come together to create a common language ensuring smooth interoperability between devices. VVC, also known as H.266, has been a joint effort by the Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) of the ITU-T and the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) of the ISO/IEC and builds on previous standards such as MPEG-2, AVC/H.264 and HEVC/H.265. In contrast to proprietary alternatives, all four of these video coding standards were developed in an open and collaborative fashion.
For more than 20 years Ericsson has played a leadership role in these key standard-setting bodies. Last time we hosted VCEG and MPEG, in July 2019, in Gothenburg, Sweden, we attracted over 600 delegates from across the industry to collaborate on standards development, an example of the massive collaboration necessary to produce a secure, effective and cutting-edge system that operates smoothly across all devices.
Ericsson has led the way in developing VVC as well as previous codecs, making significant contributions to the development of the technology behind the standard. Throughout the development process for VVC – which started as far back as 2015 – Ericsson engineers were among the main contributors to the codec, leading several of the core experiments and chairing key work activities. This technology leadership has also been a key element strengthening Ericsson´s IPR portfolio.
Although VVC outperforms its predecessors, it will only be successful if it gets widely adopted. To this end Ericsson helped create the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) in 2018 with the objective to facilitate marketing, interoperability testing and licensing of VVC.
VVC brings new functionality to VR and other media
Cutting the bitrate and compressing video is the most important aspect of the VVC standard, but there are a few new functionalities as well. Immersive video will take a major leap forward with VVC. For example, in a VR video game, high resolution is needed where the player is directly looking but images at the periphery are lower resolution. That transition and mixing is easier to accomplish with VVC, along with 5G and edge computing. This same technology could be used to, say, freeze the action during a soccer game and examine the scene in 3D, from all angles. Such a feature requires massive amounts of data and low latency and is where more efficient compression becomes critical.
While video applications like streaming and gaming are the most obvious ways the codec will affect technology, there are some other key areas. In automobiles, it will enhance “computer vision,” allowing for things like heads-up displays on windshields and communication between vehicles on the road. All these use cases take a lot of visual data and will benefit from VVC.
The first software implementations of VVC were already available in 2020 and hardware will follow – with some chipset makers saying the first commercial VVC shipments could start before the end of 2021.
Given the importance of video and compression to next-generation mobile broadband use cases and the burden such traffic puts on networks, VVC will be critically important in the coming years, enabling some of the most exciting technologies, from fully-immersive VR games to self-driving cars.