Origin and history of HEVC

HEVC was born from a collaboration between the ITU and MPEG, the same groups behind H.264. It took three years to design and over a decade to reach every device.

Updated 11 October 2026 5 sources cited

Key points

HEVC was designed between 2010 and 2013 by JCT-VC, a joint team of the ITU (VCEG) and ISO/IEC (MPEG).
The ITU approved the first version on 13 April 2013; the latest, the 11th, dates from January 2026.
It won an Engineering Emmy in 2017, the year Apple adopted it on iPhone and Mac.
Its fragmented licensing spurred the creation of AV1; its official successor is VVC (H.266).

Background: the success of H.264

In 2003 the ITU and MPEG approved H.264/AVC, which became the universal codec: Blu-ray, YouTube, HD television, video calls. But 4K, with four times the pixels of Full HD, and the boom in mobile video called for something far more efficient.

From 2004 the ITU's video experts (VCEG) tested improvements on a code base called KTA. MPEG started its own project in 2007 with an ambitious goal: halve the bitrate. By 2009 early experiments reached only 20 %, and the two bodies decided to join forces again.

HEVC through time

2003H.264/AVC approved, the codec that will dominate the decade
2010ITU and MPEG form JCT-VC; 27 proposals compete
2013April: ITU approves H.265 (version 1). Google releases VP9
2014Version 2: 10/12-bit, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4. First patent pool
20164K Blu-ray and UHD TVs with HEVC arrive
2017iOS 11 and macOS adopt it; Engineering Emmy
2018AOMedia releases royalty-free AV1
2020VVC/H.266, its successor, is finalised
2022Chrome and Edge 107 play HEVC in hardware
2025Firefox adds it; Access Advance buys Via LA's pool
2026Standard version 11. UHD terrestrial TV in Spain

HEVC Other codecs · Sources: ITU, Wikipedia (High Efficiency Video Coding), AOMedia.

2010-2013: the call and the design

January 2010: call for proposalsVCEG and MPEG issue a joint call for technology proposals.
April 2010: first JCT-VC meeting27 complete proposals are evaluated in Dresden and the name "High Efficiency Video Coding" is chosen.
October 2010: first draftTools are refined through comparative experiments at every meeting.
January 2013: consentThe ITU gives first-stage consent and MPEG promotes it to Final Draft International Standard.
13 April 2013: approvalThe ITU approves H.265 and publishes it on 7 June; ISO/IEC publishes 23008-2 in November.

Subjective tests published at the time showed average savings of around 50 % over H.264 at equal perceived quality, and 59 % in the 2014 JCT-VC/BBC tests, more as resolution increases.

Extensions to the standard

Version	Date	Main addition
1	April 2013	Main, Main 10 and Main Still Picture profiles
2	October 2014	Range Extensions (12-16-bit, 4:2:2, 4:4:4), scalable (SHVC) and multiview (MV-HEVC)
3	April 2015	3D-HEVC
4	December 2016	Screen Content Coding (desktop, slides, games)
5-11	2018-2026	Corrections, new SEI messages and metadata (version 11 is from January 2026)

Adoption: slow and uneven

A standard is not enough: you need chips that decode it. The first arrived in 2014-2015 (NVIDIA GTX 960, Intel Skylake, Apple's A9). The decisive push came in 2016 with Ultra HD Blu-ray, which requires it, and in 2017 when iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra began recording and playing HEVC and photos moved to HEIC.

That October, JCT-VC received a Primetime Engineering Emmy for HEVC. Browsers, however, took a decade: Safari supported it in 2017, Chrome and Edge in 2022 (version 107) and Firefox in 2025-2026. The reason was patents.

The patent wars

Instead of a single licensing pool like H.264's, HEVC ended up with three (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance and Velos Media) plus independent holders. The uncertainty led Google, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft and others to found the Alliance for Open Media in 2015, which released AV1 in 2018. In December 2025 Access Advance announced it was acquiring the HEVC/VVC programme of Via LA, MPEG LA's successor.

Successors: VVC and AV1

JVET, JCT-VC's successor, finalised VVC (H.266) in July 2020, again promising 50 % less bitrate than HEVC. Device adoption is starting in 2025-2026 with the first phone chips. Meanwhile AV1 dominates YouTube and Netflix and its successor AV2 is on the way. Compare them in our codec comparison.

Even so, HEVC will be with us for many years: it is the codec of Spain's UHD terrestrial TV, of 4K Blu-ray and of billions of phone videos.

Frequently asked questions

Who invented HEVC?

There is no single inventor. It was developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC), set up in 2010 by experts from the ITU (VCEG) and ISO/IEC (MPEG), with contributions from dozens of companies and universities.

When was H.265 approved?

The ITU approved the first version on 13 April 2013 and published it in June. ISO/IEC published it in November 2013. There have been eleven versions since; the latest is from January 2026.

What replaces HEVC?

Its official successor is VVC (H.266), finalised in July 2020. In parallel, the Alliance for Open Media released AV1 in 2018 as a royalty-free alternative.