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AV1 isn't mature enough to make it worth sinking a bunch of time into optimizing an encoder for yet. There will eventually be multi-threaded AV1 encoders but t
by paulmd 8y ago
AV1 isn't mature enough to make it worth sinking a bunch of time into optimizing an encoder for yet. There will eventually be multi-threaded AV1 encoders but the format needs to stabilize first. There is no guarantee that a file you encode today will play on anything in the future. It is in no way ready for primetime, maybe in another 3-5 years it will be at the enthusiast/pirate stage and commercial usage in 7-10 years.
Also, do bear in mind that the primary use-case here is for Youtube to cut down their bandwidth consumption, and other similar users who don't mind doing a one-time encode that either takes a while, or needs to be run with process-level parallelism (different files at the same time). Multi-threaded encoders are not really a primary design goal here.
The format is practically worthless until there is a hardware decoder for it, nobody will software-decode AV1 on their smartphones or laptops. Nobody is going to design a hardware encoder until the standard stabilizes. Google can do all the Youtube encodes they want but they are going to have to keep developing and serving H264 for a long, long time.
- clouddrover 8y ago> nobody will software-decode AV1 on their smartphones or laptops Dav1d (https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d) runs fine on my laptop for 1080p AV1 decoding. Your mileage may vary. > Nobody is going to design a hardware encoder until the standard stabilizes. NGCodec will release a hardware encoder this year. They use FPGAs for their encoders. Twitch uses NGCodec for their live VP9 streaming: https://ngcodec.com/news/2019/1/7/ngcodec-announces-av1-support-and-a-2x-performance-improvement-in-broadcast-quality-live-video-encoding https://ngcodec.com/news/2019/1/7/ngcodec-announces-av1-supp... https://blog.twitch.tv/how-does-vp9-deliver-value-for-twitchs-esports-live-streaming-35db26f6322f https://blog.twitch.tv/how-does-vp9-deliver-value-for-twitch...
- galad87 8y agoIt might run fine, but it won’t compare to the hardware decoder when running on battery.
- clouddrover 8y agoI have an insufficiency of pearls to clutch.
- Dylan16807 8y agoI thought they nailed down the bitstream already? "On 25 June 2018, a validated version 1.0.0 of the specification was released. On 8 January 2019 a validated version 1.0.0 with Errata 1 of the specification was released."
- acdha 8y agoThe bitstream is an important milestone but it normally takes years of optimization for a codec to really hit peak quality. There are many decisions to be made during the encoding process which have an impact on file size, quality for specific content types, required decoder resources, etc. The first generation implementations often produce files which are notably larger because they're doing the simplest, most conservative encoding process and subsequent tools may have far more sophisticated optimizations. If it's more familiar, think of it as similar to saying that the x86 or ARM instruction set has been finalized: the first generation will work but over time every component will be optimized to improve certain areas and there will be tailored versions for specific applications (e.g. video codecs used in chat have hard latency requirements while Netflix can afford a LOT of optimization time for a file which will be streamed a billion times).
- Dylan16807 8y agoI agree with all of that. My point is that AV1 is at the point of maturity where we need to sink maximum effort into improving the encoders, and what you're saying seems to support that.