Video codecs are a type of issues that everybody makes use of, however few perceive. For a lot of customers, codec help is little greater than a frustration, reminiscent of when your software program participant tells you an audio or video format shouldn’t be supported. Anger ensues.
Present video codecs embrace H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC), however there’s one other one gaining traction. AV1. AV1 is developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) (opens in new tab), which is a consortium made up of a who’s who of tech firms (opens in new tab). The indicators level in direction of AV1 changing into the dominant web video format. It’s gaining widespread help from main content material suppliers, {hardware} and infrastructure firms, sport streamers and creators.
The goal of AV1 is to ship equal video high quality at a decrease bitrate (with a ensuing smaller file measurement), or larger high quality at an equal bitrate to the likes of a HEVC video. This implies it’s capable of stream 4K and future 8K content material extra effectively than older codecs, delivering bandwidth financial savings in addition to reducing the calls for on community Infrastructure.
The second key characteristic of AV1 is that not like HEVC and AVC, it’s open supply and royalty free. This makes it a lot simpler for builders to combine it into their techniques with decrease prices that do not find yourself being handed on to customers.
However will or not it’s extensively adopted? Let’s take a look at the lengthy record of firms throwing their weight behind AV1, beginning with content material suppliers. There’s Google (YouTube), Amazon (Prime, Twitch), Netflix and Meta (Fb). Add to that Microsoft, Tencent and Vimeo amongst others and also you’ve obtained the help of the streaming trade. It’s of their monetary curiosity to avoid wasting bandwidth wherever doable.
The record of {hardware} supporters is equally spectacular. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Arm Cisco, Broadcom, Mediatek, and lots of others mix to make up an inventory that has sufficient affect to make sure the success of AV1, although whether or not they all push for it equally is an open query. Be aware that there’s one main exclusion from that record. Qualcomm. Nonetheless, its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 due in 2023 will reportedly embrace AV1 decoding help.
In response to Phoronix (opens in new tab) (by way of Tom’s {Hardware} (opens in new tab)) Google launched an replace that reduces encoding occasions by as much as 34%. This, together with AV1 encoding help on Nvidia’s new RTX 40 collection (opens in new tab) and Intel Arc GPUs (opens in new tab) is a significant step in direction of widespread adoption. It’s nearly sure that AMD’s upcoming RDNA 3 GPUs can even help encoding. Be aware that RDNA2 (besides the 6500 XT and decrease), RTX 30 and lots of cell SoC’s already characteristic AV1 decode help.
Now that content material and {hardware} help is locked in, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than adoption accelerates. It’s not a change that may occur in a single day. However, in case you do occur to have one of many aforementioned AV1 decode supporting merchandise, you should utilize AV1 now. Go to your YouTube settings, playback and efficiency and choose at all times choose AV1.
So, AV1 ticks nearly each field from each a supplier and client perspective. It’s royalty free and requires much less bandwidth. Each are robust incentives for suppliers to undertake it because it means decrease prices. For finish customers it means both smaller downloads or larger video high quality, and its open supply nature ought to result in common software program help. Look out for lots extra AV1 content material within the months and years forward.