By Jonathan Smith, business development director, cloud, at Net Insight.
Sports broadcasting in 2025 has seen a shift towards more prevalent use of a couple of technologies: High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and High Dynamic Range (HDR). While neither are new technologies, together, they are becoming the standard way in which fans experience live events, delivering sharper, more vibrant visuals while keeping bandwidth demands under control.
HDR enhances contrast and colour depth, making every frame of a fast-paced match more lifelike. From the deep greens of a football pitch to the dazzling whites of a cricket ball under floodlights against a dark crowd, HDR ensures viewers see every detail. Following its debut a decade ago, HDR has grown to become a mainstream expectation. Broadcasters now tout HD HDR rather than 4K as the best delivery for sports content.
Delivering HDR at scale would be impossible without HEVC. Compared to H.264, HEVC can achieve up to 50% bitrate savings, enabling HDR streams without changing the load on networks or inflating egress or distribution costs. This efficiency is critical as streaming overtakes more traditional distributions, with millions of fans connecting via IP platforms. HEVC’s mature ecosystem – hardware decoders in TVs, set-top boxes, and mobile devices – makes it the codec of choice for live sports in 2025.
Producing HDR sports content is complex. Cameras capture in Log or RAW formats to preserve as much detail as possible, through production and eventually feeding into HEVC encoding pipelines that must use 10-bit depth to allow correct representation of the wider colour space.
Despite its advantages, HDR of course adds to bitrate requirements compared to common 8-bit SDR distribution, and upgrading core infrastructure – cameras, encoders, storage – can limit universal adoption. Compatibility remains another hurdle: broadcasters often deliver both HDR and SDR streams, doubling encoding workloads. On the consumer side, some laptops and web browsers disable HEVC hardware acceleration due to licensing costs, creating friction for universal HEVC HDR adoption.
Broadcasters are adopting adaptive HDR formats, which use dynamic metadata to optimise contrast scene by scene – a major benefit for sports played under varying lighting conditions. IP-based delivery using ARQ protocols help to ensures primary low-latency transport over cost-effective networks while preserving HDR integrity.
Looking ahead to 2026
The next year will focus on refining HEVC and HDR workflows rather than replacing them. Expect deeper integration of HDR across mid-tier sports and regional broadcasts, driven by falling equipment costs and improved production tools.
HEVC will remain dominant as broadcasters optimise encoding ladders for adaptive streaming. Consumer devices will continue expanding HDR support, making HDR the default expectation for premium sports streams.
In short, 2026 will be about scaling HDR and HEVC from elite events to everyday sports viewing, delivering immersive experiences without breaking the ever-ballooning bandwidth budgets.
