Today, Struktur AG / Spreed released another milestone of libde265 open source codec for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), a video compression standard, a successor to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding). HEVC is said to double the data compression ratio compared to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC at the same level of video quality. It is able to support resolutions up to 8K UHD (8192×4320). With this new release, libde265 implements all commonly used coding tools of the H.265 video standard. This includes support for playback of the newly released DivX HEVC video streams. Since libde265’s implementation does not rely on any special hardware, H.265 video streams are playable on tablets and mobile phones.
In an interview with libde265 researcher Dr. Dirk Farin, Mr. Farin points out the roadmap:
“We are expecting 4K Ultra HD video support and 4:4:4 chroma sampling for an upcoming release. However, even more important for us is our ongoing development in state-of-the-art video encoding algorithms. Currently available encoders have either a large computational complexity or do not show the superior video quality possible with HEVC. Computationally efficient encoder implementations unleashing the full potential of HEVC are crucial for the adoption of this new and exciting video compression standard. Hence, advanced HEVC video encoding is one of the most important milestones on our libde265 development roadmap.”
libde265 has been developed from scratch as a clean-room implementation. Its standardized API makes it easy to integrate HEVC libde265 into applications such as state-of-the-art web browsers and next-gen video conferencing systems.
“Bandwidth reducing HEVC will enable a new field of secure peer-to-peer applications such as HD multipoint audio&video conferencing and HD-video streaming on mobile networks. As open source project the participating submitters and a wide range of users are going to benefit from libde265 HEVC,” says CEO Niels Mache.
libde265 is licensed by Struktur AG, Germany under open source LGPL.
libde265 on GitHub: https://github.com/strukturag/libde265/releases
HEVC / H.265 on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding
