The Motion Picture Experts Group came up with the idea that the future was going to come eventually, when all microprocessors were fast and cheap little buggers with great computational ability and internal paths to use it on. They re-wrote what was never called H.261 into H.264, which is often called MPEG-4.
But it was a two step process, it seems. Getting that complete re-write out of the way was fine, but now the coup de grâce to low quality – H.265, also called HEVC.
The ITU has just approved the standard. Orange, the phone and internet arm of France Telecom (and a big presence throughout the EU) has established H.265 as their new transmission method, and so we are officially calling H.265 the Buzzword of the entire first part of 2013…except for SMPTE 2052 captioning, which should get more attention.
Better explained here:
News: TVTechnology: Next-Gen HEVC Video Standard Approved
Background: TVTechnology: H.265 HEVC, The Next Step for MPEG
HEVC is for OTT but not yet Ultra HD | Broadcast Engineering Blog
PR: Orange to deploy HEVC-based VOD on Samsung Smart TVs | Videonet
Technology (Technicolor pdf): https:An overview of the emerging HEVC standard
Graphics: The Emerging HEVC Webinar