HEVC/H.265 vs. VP9 state-of-the-art video coding comparison for HD and UHD applications

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and VP9 are the latest state-of-the-art high-efficiency video coding standards. Both standards aim to decrease the bit-rate while improving the compression efficiency. HEVC/H.265 video standard was collaboratively developed by ITU-T and ISO/IEC with up to 50% bit-rate reduction as compared to its predecessor H.264/AVC. On the other hand, VP9 is an open source video standard developed by Google. While maintaining the same video quality, VP9 has achieved 50% bit-rate reduction as compared to its predecessor VP8. This research paper focuses on the comparison of HEVC and VP9 based on both subjective as well as objective assessments. First, detailed differences in design and specification of the two standards are discussed. Later experiment results are provided, which compare the coding efficiency of both standards on various high-definition 720p, 1090p, and 2160p sample test bench videos. According to our experimental results, it has been empirically proved that HEVC/H.265 outperforms VP9 in bit-rate savings.