NHK and Mitsubishi Develop World's First HEVC Encoder for 8K Super Hi-Vision

TOKYO — NHK (President: Masayuki Matsumoto) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (President & CEO: Kenichiro Yamanishi) have jointly developed the world’s first HEVC encoder for 8K ultra HDTV “Super Hi-Vision” (hereinafter referred to as “SHV”).

SHV is the broadcasting medium of the near future. It makes viewers feel like they are really at the heart of the action, with 16 times the number of HD pixels and a 22.2 multichannel surround sound experience.

HEVC is due to be recognized as an international standard this year. It offers about double the data compression of AVC, and about four times that of the MPEG-2 standard currently employed for digital HDTV broadcasting.

The high-volume SHV images are divided into 17 horizontal rows. The parallel processing of these rows makes it possible to achieve real-time coding of SHV images. The deterioration of picture quality at the row boundaries has been lessened by having rows share data concerning the speed, direction, etc. of moving objects.

NHK and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation are pursuing research and development of real-time coding of the 120 Hz frame frequency of SHV.

The HEVC encoder will be displayed at the NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories Open House 2013, which will take place from May 30th to June 2nd.