What role will VVC play in the future of terrestrial television?

BEAVERTON, Ore—Versatile Video Coding (VVC) is set to play a key role in the evolution of video compression technology, with organizations around the world recognizing its potential to significantly advance broadcasting, streaming, and digital communications services by improving user experiences and shaping the future of digital content delivery.

This was the main consensus of the digital panel discussion, which included:

Madeleine Noland, President of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC);
Yasser Syed, head of the advanced coding technologies group at the Society of Cable and Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE);
Luiz Fausto, coordinator of the technical module of the Brazilian Digital Television System (SBTVD) forum; and
Alan Stein Former Chair of the Marketing Working Group of the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF).

The session was moderated by BizTechReports and hosted by MC-IF to explore the evolving landscape of VVC, a rapidly evolving video compression standard developed by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) in collaboration with the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). VVC promises significant improvements in compression efficiency. Its potential applications span sectors from traditional broadcast to emerging streaming platforms.

Enabling new services and use cases
According to Noland, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has released its candidate standard VVC (Versatile Video Coding) for review and feedback. As part of the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards, he says, VVC is positioned as a natural progression from previous codecs like MPEG-2 and HEVC.

Noland said VVC’s unique capabilities support a range of new services and use cases, including portrait mode video and low-latency applications, which has the potential to improve the quality of the viewer experience.

She recently returned from a business trip to Brazil and noted that the rate of adoption of VVC technology will vary across countries and markets, depending on existing systems and device availability.

“It will be interesting to see what happens in different environments. One thing is implementing VVC in a greenfield environment, like what the SBTVD forum in Brazil is doing to bring TV 3.0 to market. They are running on a clean slate. It’s a different story in places with an existing system; it will be a different path in terms of adopting new video codec technologies,” Noland said.

While the transition to the VVC standard will take some time, Noland believes its implementation is likely to deliver significant improvements in the efficiency, quality and service offering of the broadcasting space.

Green fields of Brazil
SBTVD’s Fausto said Brazil plans to finalize standards for its TV 3.0 initiative by the end of this year and hopes to begin implementing them next year. He expects significant over-the-air testing of TV 3.0 services next year, with full commercial services beginning in 2026.

Fausto made it clear that VVC is key in Brazil. It will open the door to broadcasting higher-quality content — such as 4K or 8K movies. He also said that having receivers capable of decoding VVC will help regular TV and online streaming services, potentially making those services cheaper. Fausto believes that moving to TV 3.0 and adopting VVC will not only improve image quality and performance, but also open up new opportunities for viewers in Brazil.

“People in Brazil have already become accustomed to high-quality free digital television. We need to surpass that quality. We need to provide 4K or 8K terrestrially and show that it is clearly better than what people are already accustomed to,” Fausto said. So choosing the most efficient video codec available — such as VVC — makes sense to facilitate that leap,” he said.

However, the full transition to TV 3.0 will take time, as transmitters and receivers across the country will need to be replaced. As a result, different parts of Brazil — and different TV channels — may adopt TV 3.0 at different rates.

Performance, scalability and compatibility
SCTE’s Syed said his team is evaluating unidirectional technology and the possibility of coexisting different codecs with new technologies such as VVC codecs. He described it as a generational leap in performance, offering 40-50% more efficiency than previous technologies.

“It introduces bandwidth efficiency, which allows you to scale more video. But then, on a single stream, you can do really interesting things like increase resolution and frame rate, which is great for sports. You can introduce multi-camera applications. And if we can package those capabilities into services that the viewer sees as an improvement, that’s key. It’s not just about changing codecs,” Syed said.

He explained that one of the key advantages of VVC is that it can adapt to current computational complexities, introducing both efficiency and scalability to support and enhance legacy and new services. The technology also offers potential cost savings for wireless and wireless distribution platforms, enabling strategic alignment with industry advances and consumer demands for efficient and high-quality content delivery.

Versatility opens up new market opportunities
To emphasize the dimensions of VVC’s “versatility,” Stein noted that the video codec has implications beyond broadcast, streaming, and television applications. He highlighted VVC’s successful implementation in mobile phone technology, noting its efficient operation—even as a software-only encoder—and its minimal impact on battery life.

“I’m encouraged by the statement from Qualcomm MC-IF colleague Aytac Biber, who recently noted that VVC in mobile phone technology actually works even in software. It works with relatively low battery consumption. And that leads me to the conclusion that the world doesn’t just need chipset support to implement VVC,” Stein said.

In considering VVC’s trajectory, Stein compared it to previous encoding technologies such as MPEG-2 and HEVC, noting its standardization by MPEG in 2020 and predicting a similar timeline for adoption and implementation across application standards and market products. He also noted the growing potential of the streaming market in developing economies, particularly in Asia, which could result in VVC overtaking North America and Europe.