This Technical Report gathers the opportunities for improving HEVC-based services. This includes documentation of motivating use cases and scenarios. Specifically, potential of improving on the following use cases are identified: the compression performance for stereoscopic 3D content, the network performance related to exploding adaptive streaming traffic, and the demands for very high-quality image applications. HEVC based solutions to address each opportunity are identified: HEVC Multiview profiles, HEVC Scalable profiles, and HEVC 4:4:4 (up to 10 bits) capable profiles. Methodologies to investigate and document the pros and cons of the proposed solutions for each use case are documented. Finally, conclusions are drawn on the relevancy of solutions and if any new normative specification work is to be done.

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The video codec characteristics for 5G services are documented in TR 26.955, and they demonstrate that the HEVC coding standard provides satisfactory performance to fulfil the needs of video service studied in the TR. It also recommended to consider upgrading specifications to support profiles, levels, and possibly features available in HEVC, including features that may include XR/AR type of services, as well as low and very low latency services. There is interest in the distribution, including streaming, of 3D movie content. Finally, the use of scalability could further enhance multi-bitrate systems such as video conferencing, or adaptive streaming, but may also provide additional benefits to end user devices, such as power adaptation. HEVC may be suitable to cater and enable such applications. This specification outlines these emerging applications for video coding, gather evidence whether specific new tools can provide advantage for specific services and applications, and conclude if normative specification work is needed on these aspects.