The ITU announced today that it’s members have agreed upon a new high efficiency video codec. Dubbed HEVC H.265, the new format is designed to improve on and ultimately replace the current king of all codecs, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC which covers 80% of internet video today.

So far, a lot of attention has been given to the codec’s ability to deliver the same quality video as 264 with only half the bandwidth. That kind of efficiency improvement is a big deal– it could reduce strain on networks and bring high-resolution 4K content delivery over the internet closer to reality.

There are also some important changes for color in the new spec. Recent drafts by the ITU’s Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) have added support for wider color gamuts like Adobe RGB 1998 and 12-bit video. This paves the way for fantastic looking color as wide gamut-capable hardware starts to become more widely available.