UN group okays new video format to save bandwidth

U.N. telecommunications agency said its members had agreed upon a new compression format that could dramatically cut the amount of Internet bandwidth currently used by video files.

The International Telecommunication Union said the format, or codec, known as H.265, would require just half the amount of data needed by its predecessor, H.264.

The Geneva-based agency said videos encoded using the H.264 format, which is favoured by devices such as Apple’s iPad, now accounted for two-fifths of web traffic.

The ITU said in a statement that the new H.265 codec could pave the way for “the next wave of innovation,” such as faster movie downloads and higher-quality video streaming.