Heiko Schwarz has actively participated in the standardization activities of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (ITU-T SG16/Q.6-VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Pictures Experts Group (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11-MPEG). He successfully contributed to the video coding standards ITU-T Rec. H.264 | ISO/IEC 14496-10 (MPEG-4 AVC) and ITU-T Rec. H.265 | ISO/IEC 23008-2 (MPEG-H HEVC) and their extensions. Heiko Schwarz co-chaired various ad hoc groups of the standardization bodies. He was appointed as co-editor of ITU-T Rec. H.264 and ISO/IEC 14496-10 and as software coordinator for the SVC reference software.
Heiko Schwarz served as reviewer for various international journals and international conferences. Since 2016, he is associate editior of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.