HEVC codec, created by JCT-VC, wins 2017 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award

The Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) has been awarded the 2017 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for its work on HEVC (High Efficiency Video Codec); a highly popular video encoding specification that enables efficient delivery in UltraHD (UHD) content over many distribution channels.

Key contributors included (in alphabetical order) Fraunhofer HHI, Huawei, MediaTek, Nokia, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung and Sony Corp, and together they celebrate receiving the prestigious award.

What is HEVC?

The HEVC standard has emerged as the primary format to deliver 10-bit UltraHD video with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) and wide color gamut technologies.

The new HEVC compression coding format has is being used by essentially all UltraHD television distribution infrastructures, including terrestrial, satellite, cable, fiber and wireless, and is supported in virtually all UltraHD televisions, tablets and smartphones.

What makes HEVC so popular is that it's a unique balance of high compression that's natively HDR capabile. The balance of computation complexity and power consumption makes HEVC an essential asset for wide range of products.

Who are JCT-VC?

The JCT-VC is a standardization team composed of members from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The group was formed in 2010 by the ITU Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

At least fourteen companies, including Fraunhofer HHI, Huawei, MediaTek, Nokia, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung and Sony Corp., were key contributors to this work within the JCT-VC, and altogether about 200 companies and research institutions participated to some degree in the HEVC project.

What is the Primetime Emmy Engineering Award?

The Primetime Emmy Engineering Award goes to an individual, company or organization for developments in engineering that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods, or so innovative in nature, that they materially affect the transmission, recording or reception of television.

When was the 2017 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award presented?

The award was presented at a ceremony in Hollywood, California, on Oct. 25, and was accepted on behalf of the JCT-VC by its co-chairs Gary J. Sullivan of Microsoft, and Jens-Rainer Ohm of RWTH Aachen University together with Chaesub Lee, the Director of the ITU Telecomunication Standardization Bureau and Karen Higginbottom, the outgoing chair of ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1.