# HCCB

> Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/hccb
> research date 2026-06-03 · extracted at 2026-10-06
> Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards

Specifications:
- [High Capacity Color Barcodes (HCCB) — Microsoft Research](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capacity-color-barcodes-hccb/)
- [High Capacity Color Barcode — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode)

## Overview

**High Capacity Color Barcode (HCCB)** is a proprietary 2D barcode technology developed by Microsoft that encodes data in clusters of coloured **triangles** rather than the square black-and-white modules used by QR Code and Data Matrix <sup>[2][2]</sup>. Data density is raised by drawing the triangular symbols from a palette of **4 or 8 colours**, with a black-and-white (2-colour) fallback when colour reproduction is unavailable <sup>[2][2]</sup>. Microsoft positioned HCCB not as a replacement for retail UPC barcodes but as a "partner" or niche symbology for cases where a large amount of data must fit in a small printed area <sup>[1][1]</sup><sup>[2][2]</sup>. HCCB is best known as the underlying symbology of the consumer-facing [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag) mobile tagging service.

## History

HCCB was created by **Gavin Jancke**, an engineering director at **Microsoft Research** <sup>[1][1]</sup><sup>[2][2]</sup>. The technology was publicly detailed on **18 December 2007** by Microsoft Research <sup>[3][3]</sup>. Jancke characterised it as "more of a 'partner' barcode... Ours is more of a niche barcode," designed for scenarios where "you want to put a lot of information in a small space," rather than to displace conventional one-dimensional barcodes <sup>[1][1]</sup>. The research effort subsequently became the basis for the [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag) mobile application launched in 2009 <sup>[2][2]</sup>.

## Technical specification

- **Symbol shape and layout.** HCCB uses coloured triangles arranged in a grid, rather than square pixels; capacity is increased by combining a different symbol shape with multiple colours per symbol <sup>[2][2]</sup><sup>[3][3]</sup>.
- **Colour palette.** The format supports **8-colour, 4-colour, or 2-colour (black-and-white)** configurations, with the 8-colour palette giving the highest density <sup>[2][2]</sup>.
- **Data density.** Microsoft reported laboratory tests with standard off-the-shelf printers and scanners (a 600 dpi scanner) yielding roughly **2,000 binary bytes, or 3,500 alphabetical characters, per square inch** in the 8-colour configuration — which Microsoft Research described as equating to "two pages of a novel" <sup>[3][3]</sup>.
- **Multiple payloads.** A single symbol can store multiple individual data items, each compressed independently <sup>[3][3]</sup>.
- **Cryptographic signing.** HCCB integrates digital-signing features using Elliptic Curve Cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) techniques, claimed to provide RSA-1024-strength security in only 20 bytes of payload overhead <sup>[3][3]</sup>.
- **Decoding performance.** Microsoft Research reported real-time decoding from a video stream — for example about 30 ms on a 200 MHz ARM processor — with the smallest symbol readable on unmodified phone cameras at a print size of roughly 3/4 inch square <sup>[3][3]</sup>.

## Use cases

HCCB was designed for identifying commercial audiovisual works such as motion pictures and video games, letting a user retrieve ratings, promotions and pricing by scanning the code with a webcam or phone camera <sup>[3][3]</sup>. It was **licensed by the ISAN International Agency** for use in the International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN) standard <sup>[1][1]</sup><sup>[2][2]</sup>. Its largest real-world deployment was as the symbology behind the consumer [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag) service for magazine and advertising scanning <sup>[2][2]</sup>.

## Implementations

There are **no public, openly available HCCB encoder/decoder implementations**. HCCB was a proprietary Microsoft technology; consumer access was mediated through the [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag) reader app and Microsoft's servers rather than an open library or specification <sup>[2][2]</sup>.

## Comparison

Against QR Code, HCCB's selling point was higher data density: by adding colour as a third dimension to the 2D matrix, more information fits into the same printed area than a two-colour code allows <sup>[2][2]</sup>. However, HCCB depended on a **proprietary reader** and, in its [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag) form, on a **cloud lookup** that resolved the scanned code to publisher content via Microsoft's servers — features that the open, royalty-free QR Code did not require <sup>[2][2]</sup>. QR Code's open ISO standardisation and the lack of any licensing or server dependency are widely cited reasons it prevailed over Microsoft's proprietary approach <sup>[4][4]</sup>.

In the colour-2D niche, the open successor is **JAB Code** (Just Another Bar Code), a polychrome 2D matrix developed by Fraunhofer SIT that, unlike HCCB, is unlicensed, open source (LGPL v2.1), has a freely available specification, and was standardised as ISO/IEC 23634 <sup>[5][5]</sup>. JAB Code likewise exploits colour to raise capacity — a four-colour code roughly doubles, and an eight-colour code roughly triples, the data of a two-colour code of the same size <sup>[5][5]</sup> — but does so as an open standard rather than a proprietary, cloud-dependent system. See [JAB Code](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/jab-code).

## Fun facts

- Microsoft Research likened the highest-density 8-colour HCCB to fitting "two pages of a novel" into one square inch <sup>[3][3]</sup>.
- The same symbology underpins both a film/game licensing identifier (via ISAN) and a consumer magazine-ad scanning service, [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag) <sup>[2][2]</sup><sup>[3][3]</sup>.

## Status

HCCB is effectively **discontinued**. Its main public vehicle, [Microsoft Tag](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/microsoft-tag), was announced for shutdown on 19 August 2013 and terminated on **19 August 2015**, with operations transitioned to Scanbuy's ScanLife QR platform <sup>[2][2]</sup>. No active Microsoft HCCB product or open implementation remains.

## Sources

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode
[2]: https://www.liquisearch.com/high_capacity_color_barcode
[3]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capacity-color-barcodes-hccb/
[4]: https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/19/microsoft-gives-up-on-its-tag-barcode-service-schedules-it-for-shutdown-in-2015/
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAB_Code

1. [High Capacity Color Barcode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode) — Wikipedia, accessed 2026
2. [High Capacity Color Barcode](https://www.liquisearch.com/high_capacity_color_barcode) — Liquisearch, accessed 2026
3. [High Capacity Color Barcodes (HCCB)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capacity-color-barcodes-hccb/) — Microsoft Research, 2007
4. [Microsoft Gives Up On Its Tag Barcode Service, Schedules It For Shutdown In 2015](https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/19/microsoft-gives-up-on-its-tag-barcode-service-schedules-it-for-shutdown-in-2015/) — TechCrunch, 2013
5. [JAB Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAB_Code) — Wikipedia, accessed 2026

## Deployments

_No country reports mention this standard by name._

## Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country

- Universal