Heiko Schwarz

Prof. Heiko Schwarz is a Professor at Freie Universität Berlin and Head of the Image & Video Coding Group at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI). He holds a Dipl.-Ing. (1996) and Dr.-Ing. (2000) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rostock.

Research & Expertise: Specializes in video coding standards including HEVC (H.265) and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. Key contributions include scalable video coding (SVC), multiview video coding (MVC), and rate-distortion optimized encoding. His work has been integral to international standards through participation in ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG.

• Developed core tools for HEVC and its 3D video extensions
• Co-designed H.264/AVC's motion compensation and entropy coding
• Co-editor of H.264/AVC and SVC reference software

Awards & Recognition:

• 2014 SMPTE Certificate of Merit
• 2012 German Future Prize Nomination
• 2011 Karl Heinz Beckurts Award
• 2009 IEEE Best Paper Award

Academic Engagement: Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (2016–present). Teaches Data Compression at FU Berlin. Leads a research group focusing on next-generation video coding technologies.

Labs/Teams: Directs the Image & Video Coding Group at Fraunhofer HHI, advancing standards like HEVC and exploring wavelet-based video coding techniques.