IEEE Will Present 2027 Netravali Award to HEVC Leads
The 2027 honor recognizes the development of the HEVC standard, which now supports 90% of produced television sets.
Updated on Sept. 24, 2026 in Tech — General
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The IEEE will present its 2027 Arun N. Netravali Video Analytics, Technology, and Systems Award to Benjamin Bross, Jens-Rainer Ohm, and Gary J. Sullivan for their leadership in creating the HEVC standard. First released in 2013, the standard remains a foundation for global video infrastructure.
Why it matters
The HEVC standard enables the delivery of high-resolution video content while optimizing bandwidth for a world where video accounts for 80% of communication network traffic. This development addressed the critical need for standards capable of leveraging parallel processing architectures.
HEVC delivers a 50% bit rate reduction compared to the previous AVC standard. The standard was developed by the JCT-VC, which analyzed thousands of technical documents from approximately one thousand experts to refine feature selection.
The players
Benjamin Bross
Head of Video Coding Systems at Fraunhofer HHI, an institute in Germany focused on mobile and fixed broadband communication.
Jens-Rainer Ohm
Professor emeritus at RWTH Aachen University, a research institution known for its work in information technology and electrical engineering.
Gary J. Sullivan
Director of Video Research and Standards at Dolby Laboratories, a company specializing in audio and video compression and signal processing.
The details
The Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) developed HEVC, also known as H.265 or MPEG-H Part 2, to handle increased video resolution requirements. The standard functions by refining video compression features through a consensus-based approach to standardize how visual data is encoded. It specifically optimizes processing for modern hardware architectures, allowing for the massive scale of current global video traffic.
Timeline
2010: The JCT-VC was formed to begin standard development.
2013: The first version of the HEVC standard was completed.
2017: The JCT-VC received a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award.
March 2026: NASA announced its NASA+ streaming service utilizes HEVC.
2027: The IEEE will present the Netravali Award.
The Tech Race
The 2027 award acknowledges the continued relevance of the JCT-VC team's work, which previously earned the group a 2017 Primetime Engineering Emmy Award. This recognition tracks the long-term impact of HEVC as the primary standard underpinning modern network traffic.
Users experience the efficacy of HEVC whenever they access high-resolution video on mobile or desktop devices. With 90% of new televisions and 2.3 billion devices shipping with HEVC support, the standard serves as the invisible engine for most high-definition content consumption today.
The takeaway
The HEVC standard has achieved near-saturation among video professionals, cementing its status as a critical technical utility. Stakeholders should monitor future IEEE award cycles for recognition of successors to HEVC in the next-generation video compression landscape.
Further reading
For broader context on how modern standards shape streaming architecture, visit Tech — General.
More information
View the IEEE 2027 technical award announcement for official award details.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Informationdienst Wissenschaft e.V. - idw.
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