Abstract—High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is currently being prepared as the newest video coding standard of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group. The main goal of the HEVC standardization effort is to enable significantly improved compression performance relative to existing standards—in the range of 50% bit-rate reduction for equal perceptual video quality. This paper provides an overview of the technical features and characteristics of the HEVC standard. Index Terms—Advanced video coding (AVC), H.264, High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC), Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), MPEG-4, standards, Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG), video compression.