The paper provides an overview of the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard, finalized in July 2020, which was developed by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). VVC aims to address the growing need for improved video compression and support a wide range of media content and emerging applications. It offers significant bit rate reductions of up to 50% compared to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard and 75% compared to the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard. Key features of VVC include support for high-resolution videos, high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG), adaptive streaming with resolution changes, computer-generated and screen-captured video, ultralow-delay streaming, 360° immersive video, and multilayer coding. The paper also discusses the handling of video usability information (VUI) parameters and supplemental enhancement information (SEI) messages, which are generalized and specified in a separate specification, the versatile SEI (VSEI) standard. VVC retains the conventional block-based hybrid video coding scheme and follows the basic bitstream structure based on network abstraction layer (NAL) units and parameter sets. The paper covers high-level functionalities such as random access, reference picture resampling, CTUs, slices, tiles, wavefronts, subpictures, virtual boundaries, parameter sets, and scalability and layered coding. Additionally, it details core compression technologies, including block partitioning, intra-picture prediction, inter-picture prediction, spatial transformation, quantization, in-loop filtering, and entropy coding. Early implementations of VVC are presented to demonstrate its readiness for real-world deployment.The paper provides an overview of the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard, finalized in July 2020, which was developed by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). VVC aims to address the growing need for improved video compression and support a wide range of media content and emerging applications. It offers significant bit rate reductions of up to 50% compared to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard and 75% compared to the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard. Key features of VVC include support for high-resolution videos, high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG), adaptive streaming with resolution changes, computer-generated and screen-captured video, ultralow-delay streaming, 360° immersive video, and multilayer coding. The paper also discusses the handling of video usability information (VUI) parameters and supplemental enhancement information (SEI) messages, which are generalized and specified in a separate specification, the versatile SEI (VSEI) standard. VVC retains the conventional block-based hybrid video coding scheme and follows the basic bitstream structure based on network abstraction layer (NAL) units and parameter sets. The paper covers high-level functionalities such as random access, reference picture resampling, CTUs, slices, tiles, wavefronts, subpictures, virtual boundaries, parameter sets, and scalability and layered coding. Additionally, it details core compression technologies, including block partitioning, intra-picture prediction, inter-picture prediction, spatial transformation, quantization, in-loop filtering, and entropy coding. Early implementations of VVC are presented to demonstrate its readiness for real-world deployment.