Versatile Video Coding (VVC), also known asH.266,[1]ISO/IEC 23090-3,[2] andMPEG-I Part 3, is avideo compression standard finalized on 6 July 2020, by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET)[3] of theVCEG working group ofITU-T Study Group 16 and theMPEG working group ofISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29. It is the successor toHigh Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, also known as ITU-T H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2). It was developed with two primary goals – improved compression performance and support for a very broad range of applications.[4][5][6]
In October 2015, theMPEG andVCEG formed the Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET) to evaluate available compression technologies and study the requirements for a next-generation video compression standard. The new standard has about 50% better compression rate for the same perceptual quality compared to HEVC,[7] with support for lossless and lossy compression. It supports resolutions ranging from very low resolution up to4K and16K as well as 360° videos. VVC supportsYCbCr 4:4:4, 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 with 8–10 bits per component,BT.2100 wide color gamut andhigh dynamic range (HDR) of more than 16stops (with peak brightness of 1,000, 4,000 and 10,000nits), auxiliary channels (for depth, transparency, etc.), variable and fractional frame rates from 0 to 120 Hz and higher, scalable video coding for temporal (frame rate), spatial (resolution), SNR, color gamut and dynamic range differences, stereo/multiview coding, panoramic formats, and still-picture coding. Work on high bit depth support (12 to 16 bits per component) started in October 2020[8] and was included in the second edition published in 2022. Encoding complexity of several times (up to ten times) that ofHEVC is expected, depending on the quality of the encoding algorithm (which is outside the scope of the standard). The decoding complexity is about twice that of HEVC.
VVC development has been made using the VVC Test Model (VTM), a reference software codebase that was started with a minimal set of coding tools. Further coding tools have been added after being tested in Core Experiments (CEs). Its predecessor was the Joint Exploration Model (JEM), an experimental software codebase that was based on the reference software used forHEVC.
Like its predecessor, VVC usesmotion-compensated DCTvideo coding. While HEVC supports integerdiscrete cosine transform (DCT) square block sizes between 4×4 and 32×32, VVC adds support for non-square DCT rectangular block sizes. VVC also introduces severalintra-frame prediction modes based on these rectangular DCT blocks to provide improvedmotion compensation prediction.[9]
JVET issued a final Call for Proposals in October 2017, and the standardization process officially began in April 2018 when the first working draft of the standard was produced.[10][11]
AtIBC 2018, a preliminary implementation based on VVC was demonstrated that was said to compress video 40% more efficiently than HEVC.[12]
The content of the final standard was approved on 6 July 2020.[7][13][14]
To reduce the risk of the problems seen when licensingHEVC implementations, for VVC a new group called the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) was founded.[16][17] However, MC-IF had no power over the standardization process, which was based on technical merit as determined by consensus decisions of JVET.[18]
Four companies were initially vying to bepatent pool administrators for VVC, in a situation similar to the previous AVC[19] and HEVC[20] codecs. Two companies later formed patent pools:Access Advance andMPEG LA (now known asVia-LA).[21]
Access Advance published their licensing fee in April 2021.[22] Via-LA published their licensing fee in January 2022.[23]
Companies known not to be a part of the Access Advance or Via-LA patent pools as of May 2025 are: Apple, Canon, Ericsson, Fraunhofer, Google, Huawei, Intel, Interdigital, LG, Maxell, Microsoft, Nokia, Oppo, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sharp and Sony.[24] Access Advance promotes a standalone VVC licensing program under the name of VVC Advance, while Via-LA is promoting a combined HEVC/VVC licensing program; until April 2024, Via-LA was licensing VVC standalone.[25]
ffmpeg starting with version 7.0 supports experimental decoding.[30] Version 7.1 elevated support to official status.[31] As of July 2025, ffmpeg has two decoders available: one software decoder and one qsv decoder.[32]
LAV Filters, ffmpeg basedDirectShow splitter and decoders forWindows, supports demuxing and decoding starting with version 0.79.[33]
OpenVVC,[34] an incomplete open-source VVC decoder library licensed under LGPLv2.1[35]
Spin Digital offers a real-time software encoder that supports 8K@60 and 4K@120, both 4:2:0 10-bit.[36]
The BrazilianSBTVD Forum will adopt the MPEG-I VVC codec in its forthcoming broadcast television system,TV 3.0, expected to launch in 2024. It will be used alongsideMPEG-5 LCEVC as a video base layer encoder forbroadcast andbroadband delivery.[59]
The European organizationDVB Project, which governsdigital television broadcastingstandards, announced 24 February 2022 that VVC was now part of its tools for broadcasting.[60]TheDVB tuner specification used throughout Europe, Australia, and many other regions has been revised to support the VVC (H.266) video codec, the successor toHEVC.[61]
^Feldman, Christian (7 May 2019)."Video Engineering Summit East 2019 – AV1/VVC Update". New York. Archived fromthe original on 20 June 2019. Retrieved20 June 2019.No change to the standardization has been done, so it could theoretically happen that the same thing with HEVC happens again. No measures have been done to prevent that, unfortunately. Also, JVET is not directly responsible; they are just a technical committee. (…) There is the Media Coding Industry Forum (…), but they don't have any real power.
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