How H.265 ignites New Age of 4K Ultra HD

Video coding technology is the basic technology of the video surveillance system. The transformation and development of coding technology largely determines the direction of the security industry. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), better known as H.265, is the current encoding standard released in 2013, and achieves greater compression efficiency than the previous ones.

H.265, the new generation video coding standard, has become a strong force for progress in the security industry and ignite a new age of 4K Ultra HD in security camera system.

 

What is H.265?

 

First of all, let’s get a preliminary understanding of H.265.

H.265 is a new video coding standard set by ITU-T VCEG after H.264. The H.265 standard have retained some of the original technologies of the existing video coding standard H.264 while also have made improvements on some related technology.

New technologies of H.265 enhances the relationship between data rate, coding quality, latency and algorithm complexity so that achieves optimal performance.

Specific research content includes: improve compression efficiency, improve robustness and ability of error resilience, reduce real-time delay, channel acquisition time and random access delay as well as complexity, etc.

The main objective of H.265 consists in retaining the same quality while employing less than 50% of the bitstream size when compared with the previous H.264 standard.

H.264 can attain SD (standard definition) digital image transmission at speeds below 1Mbps, while H.265 can realize transmission of 720P (1280*720) ordinary HD (high definition) audio and video at speed of 1~2Mbps.

 

Advantages of H.265

As a new generation of video coding standards, H.265 is still a hybrid coding framework for prediction and transformation. However, compared with H.264, H.265 has achieved revolutionary changes in many aspects.

There are 2 core difference between them as follows:

① At the same image quality and the same bit rate, H.265 is about 50% less than the storage space occupied by H.264.

② If in equal storage space, the image quality of H.265 will be higher than H.264 at the same code rate (theoretical value is 30%~40%).

 

ZOSI self-developed H.265+ video coding technology, stands at the cutting edge of security industry, is specially developed for the characteristics of the surveillance scene. H.265+ can further improve compression ratio based on H.265 standard and save 80% storage space compared with H.264, thus effectively save network and storage space.

First, let’s learn about the concept of relation between code rate and data volume. Code rate is proportional to the volume of data, which means the smaller the code rate, the smaller the data volume.

In the dynamic scene: H.265+ code rate can be reduced by more than 30% compared with H.265, and more than 50% compared with H.264;

In static scene: H.265+ can reduce the code rate by more than 70% compared to H.265 (the minimum code rate can be 50-60kbps), significantly saving bandwidth and storage space at the same time.

The Development Trend of H.265 Technology in Video Surveillance Industry 

• The Combination of H.265 and HD (High Definition)

Nowadays the field of video surveillance faces a variety of technical challenges. As the resolution of the camera continues to increase, larger megapixels, panoramic eagle-eye cameras, and even tens of millions of pixels started to come on the stage, such as 8MP and 12MP.

At the same time, with the development of Internet technology, remote video preview viewing has become a mainstream demand. Remote viewing of such large-resolution video has brought huge network transmission pressure, and surveillance video storage of ultra-high-definition resolution has also laid great pressure on storage space.

H.264 is not capable of coping with these kind of dilemmas already. In Comparison with H.264, H.265 has a higher compression ratio for HD video, which can greatly alleviate this burden.

For example, for a 3MP resolution H.265 IP camera, the 2 Mbps H.265 stream decoding effect is equivalent to a 4 Mbps H.264 image. It can save a lot of budget for the implementation of security camera system solution and engineering construction.

 

• The Combination of H.265 and Intelligent Algorithms

In addition to the trend of high definition, there is also a developing tendency of an organic fit with intelligentization and H.265 coding.

From the perspective of algorithm, a large number of intelligent analysis algorithms are also used in the video compression algorithm. The video compression is based on the comprehension of the video image scene, effectively eliminating time redundancy, spatial redundancy, probability redundancy, etc.

Under the premise of retaining information, the purpose of compression is achieved to be as close as possible to the video image information entropy. If the intelligent analysis algorithm is combined with the H.265 encoder in a greater extent, the code rate can be further reduced and therefore the image quality will be better and better.

At present, H.265 is still in a stage of development and promotion. The optimization of intelligent algorithms is the boost for further development and breakthrough of H.265 technology.

 

• The Combination of H.265 and 4K

H.264 has caused the storm of 1080p to sweep across the world, but it is no longer able to lead the trend of 4k. H.264’s proud of high compression ratio is so incompetent in front of the huge volume of 4K. The burden of pulling 4K or even 8K video naturally falls on the successor of H.264 — H.265.

4K technology is a breakthrough in the video field whose wider color gamut and higher definition resolution give us a richer and more realistic visual experience.

Meanwhile, 4K is a huge pressure and challenge for video encoding processing. That’s when H.265 started to come out and achieves a perfect combination with 4K with its ultra high video compression rate and intelligentization.

Extended macro block and parallel processing speed present a sharp and smooth image in details. The relationship between HD and intelligence is actually the demand and supply relationship. The massive data generated by HD needs intelligent assistance. Intelligent analysis requires the support of clear, high-quality image. The enhancement in clarity shows richer image details which also means that the data is more reliable for forensics, investigation and analysis.

In line with the developing trends of security industry, we have launched a series of cameras, DVRs, NVRs based on H.265 technology. ZOSI latest model 4K security camera system combing H.265 and 4k resolution introduces powerful features to meet the growing demands for better image quality and smaller storage space, realizing the integration of collection, transmission, storage, display and control of H.265 coding all in one.

A perfect combination of H.265 and 4K achieves a powerful security camera system — capturing sharper and clearer image and experiencing faster and smoother video quality at the same time.4K Ultra HD(8MP) is capable of recording a pixel ratio of 3840 x 2160, that’s 4x the resolution of 1080P, introducing you a whole new viewing experience.

To deliver four times the image data over the same bandwidth, H.265+ significantly improves bandwidth efficiency and lets you make the most of the hard drive storage space.

What’ more, the 4K DVR can support internal hard drive installation with storage space up to 8TB, so you can enjoy the ultra-long continuous recording remote monitoring experience without worry.