As the next generation of video compression, HEVC (high-efficiency video coding) has been at the center of attention across the entire video technology industry and promises to address a wide range of important technical and business issues. This paper presents the benefits of HEVC and the challenges it is intended to address, and describes HEVC from a technical perspective. It also provides a state-of-the-industry status report of how stakeholders across the video delivery ecosystem are adopting the standard and bringing it to market. Even though low-cost ultra-high-definition TV sets and UHD programming are still some way off, there are compelling reasons to deploy HEVC compression and consumer devices right away—and consumers will notice the difference. Dune HD is pleased to offer its insights on the industry and the benefits to operators and their customers as they begin to evaluate set-top boxes and technologies with HEVC at the core.