4 ms·

AV1 Encoding is ready for prime time. However hardware decoder is mostly absent, which blocks adoption in mobile apps. (Dav1d is great, but consumes too much po

by dabei 7y ago

AV1 Encoding is ready for prime time. However hardware decoder is mostly absent, which blocks adoption in mobile apps. (Dav1d is great, but consumes too much power on mobile devices)

y0ssar1an 7y ago
The 2020 iPhones are rumored to have hardware AV1 decoders.
- ksec 7y ago
  I seriously doubt that.
  - clouddrover 7y ago
    I wouldn't seriously doubt it. It will be fast enough to do it in software anyway. Netflix has rolled out AV1 to Android and you can opt-in if you want: https://netflixtechblog.com/netflix-now-streaming-av1-on-android-d5264a515202 https://netflixtechblog.com/netflix-now-streaming-av1-on-and...
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Let's look at the basic facts: Apple is a governing member of AOM (Alliance for Open Media). A patent-free implementation of a hardware AV1 decoder is available right now. Apple makes its own chips with significant revisions every year. Apple seems to like being on the forefront of mobile silicon and already stuffs its chips full of things orders of magnitude more elaborate than this. Apple now runs their own streaming network and being able to offer AV1 encodes stretches their bandwidth further. Consider also that iPhone chips of today inevitably become the Apple TV chips of tomorrow. But most importantly of all, there's no commercial or competitive incentive for Apple not to do it. All of its serious competitors license the patent encumbered codecs and would need to continue doing so indefinitely just like Apple.
    - mekster 7y ago
      Depends if paying the license fee means much for Apple or not but if they're doing their own streaming, perhaps it does.
      - ksec 7y ago
        There is no license fees for streaming HEVC content online. License fees are only paid to Blu-Ray / disc and Encoder / Decoder per Unit.
jjcm 7y ago
The encoding still isn't ready for user driven content sites. It's still too slow, even with the 16% savings shown with the new improvements this article talks about. For Netflix it's great as they have a significant amount of time before content goes live (weeks if not months), but for sites like youtube/vimeo/instagram/etc, it just isn't quite there yet. The turnaround time is simply too long. That's just the UX bottleneck, but there's another elephant in the room: it's cost prohibitive. Encoding time is so slow that we're still measuring in frames per minute for most software encoders. If I want to move my whole video encoding pipeline to AV1 from h264, I need around 100x the horsepower to encode. That's 100x the server costs, and as someone who's looking heavily at using AV1 for the video site I'm working on now, it's simply cost prohibitive. Don't get me wrong, the steps that Netflix are taking with SVT-AV1 are amazing. We're seeing a huge improvement from the 500x vs h264 it was showing last year, but it still needs a huge amount of effort before it's ready for prime time. I'm really hoping we see some early hardware encoding/decoding implementations for AV1 given the number of companies who are in support of it.
- clouddrover 7y ago
  > The encoding still isn't ready for user driven content sites. YouTube has lots of AV1 encodes. You've probably watched AV1 encoded content without realising it. Here are a few of examples. To verify that they're AV1 encoded, right-click on the video and select "Stats for Nerds". I'm playing them in Firefox 75 beta. Halo trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmdb-KmlzD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmdb-KmlzD8 Despacito music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk Porsche Taycan commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g For some videos YouTube has AV1 encodes up to 480p, others are up to 1080p, and some are up to 4K.
  - fireattack 7y ago
    Any reason why YouTube only uses it for low(er) resolutions?
    - dabei 7y ago
baybal2 7y ago
> However hardware decoder is mostly absent, which blocks adoption in mobile apps. But HEVC is already in silicon, and that's the only thing that would matter in long run. Vendors kinda don't get why they need to waste silicon on AV1, and for whose money.
- mkl 7y ago
  Hardware support from vendors has been a key consideration from the inception of the AV1 project. ARM, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and Samsung are among the governing members of AOM (developers of AV1), and AMD, Broadcom, Chips&Media, Realtek, and others are among the general members.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    > Hardware support from vendors has been a key consideration from the inception of the AV1 project. This doesn't change the fact that HEVC got into silicon faster, and that was it.
  - ksec 7y ago
    >Hardware support from vendors has been a key consideration from the inception of the AV1 project. If that was the case AV1 spec version 1.0 would not have been postponed multiple times simply because the spec did not had any hardware decoder cost / performance in mind. And then there was the errata to version 1.0 which makes it incompatible to AV1 1.0. [1] Those vendors being a member of AOM means literally just a member only. They may or may not share any common interest. [1] https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2018/12/why-i-am-sceptical-about-av1/ https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2018/12/why-i-am-sceptical-abou...
- audunw 7y ago
  > Vendors kinda don't get why they need to waste silicon on AV1, and for whose money. I'm not an expert on HEVC or AV1 specifically, but in my experience the fundamental operations used by codecs are quite similar. You don't necessarily need significantly more silicon to add AV1-support. Remember that power-consumption is the main driver in IC development these days. It's not unreasonable to keep some dark silicon around to save power when needed.

by dabei 7y ago

AV1 Encoding is ready for prime time. However hardware decoder is mostly absent, which blocks adoption in mobile apps. (Dav1d is great, but consumes too much power on mobile devices)

y0ssar1an 7y ago

The 2020 iPhones are rumored to have hardware AV1 decoders.

ksec 7y ago
I seriously doubt that.
- clouddrover 7y ago
  I wouldn't seriously doubt it. It will be fast enough to do it in software anyway. Netflix has rolled out AV1 to Android and you can opt-in if you want: https://netflixtechblog.com/netflix-now-streaming-av1-on-android-d5264a515202 https://netflixtechblog.com/netflix-now-streaming-av1-on-and...
- sjwright 7y ago
  Let's look at the basic facts: Apple is a governing member of AOM (Alliance for Open Media). A patent-free implementation of a hardware AV1 decoder is available right now. Apple makes its own chips with significant revisions every year. Apple seems to like being on the forefront of mobile silicon and already stuffs its chips full of things orders of magnitude more elaborate than this. Apple now runs their own streaming network and being able to offer AV1 encodes stretches their bandwidth further. Consider also that iPhone chips of today inevitably become the Apple TV chips of tomorrow. But most importantly of all, there's no commercial or competitive incentive for Apple not to do it. All of its serious competitors license the patent encumbered codecs and would need to continue doing so indefinitely just like Apple.
  - mekster 7y ago
    Depends if paying the license fee means much for Apple or not but if they're doing their own streaming, perhaps it does.
    - ksec 7y ago
      There is no license fees for streaming HEVC content online. License fees are only paid to Blu-Ray / disc and Encoder / Decoder per Unit.

jjcm 7y ago

The encoding still isn't ready for user driven content sites. It's still too slow, even with the 16% savings shown with the new improvements this article talks about. For Netflix it's great as they have a significant amount of time before content goes live (weeks if not months), but for sites like youtube/vimeo/instagram/etc, it just isn't quite there yet. The turnaround time is simply too long. That's just the UX bottleneck, but there's another elephant in the room: it's cost prohibitive. Encoding time is so slow that we're still measuring in frames per minute for most software encoders. If I want to move my whole video encoding pipeline to AV1 from h264, I need around 100x the horsepower to encode. That's 100x the server costs, and as someone who's looking heavily at using AV1 for the video site I'm working on now, it's simply cost prohibitive. Don't get me wrong, the steps that Netflix are taking with SVT-AV1 are amazing. We're seeing a huge improvement from the 500x vs h264 it was showing last year, but it still needs a huge amount of effort before it's ready for prime time. I'm really hoping we see some early hardware encoding/decoding implementations for AV1 given the number of companies who are in support of it.

clouddrover 7y ago
> The encoding still isn't ready for user driven content sites. YouTube has lots of AV1 encodes. You've probably watched AV1 encoded content without realising it. Here are a few of examples. To verify that they're AV1 encoded, right-click on the video and select "Stats for Nerds". I'm playing them in Firefox 75 beta. Halo trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmdb-KmlzD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmdb-KmlzD8 Despacito music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk Porsche Taycan commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g For some videos YouTube has AV1 encodes up to 480p, others are up to 1080p, and some are up to 4K.
- fireattack 7y ago
  Any reason why YouTube only uses it for low(er) resolutions?
  - dabei 7y ago

baybal2 7y ago

> However hardware decoder is mostly absent, which blocks adoption in mobile apps. But HEVC is already in silicon, and that's the only thing that would matter in long run. Vendors kinda don't get why they need to waste silicon on AV1, and for whose money.

mkl 7y ago
Hardware support from vendors has been a key consideration from the inception of the AV1 project. ARM, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and Samsung are among the governing members of AOM (developers of AV1), and AMD, Broadcom, Chips&Media, Realtek, and others are among the general members.
- baybal2 7y ago
  > Hardware support from vendors has been a key consideration from the inception of the AV1 project. This doesn't change the fact that HEVC got into silicon faster, and that was it.
- ksec 7y ago
  >Hardware support from vendors has been a key consideration from the inception of the AV1 project. If that was the case AV1 spec version 1.0 would not have been postponed multiple times simply because the spec did not had any hardware decoder cost / performance in mind. And then there was the errata to version 1.0 which makes it incompatible to AV1 1.0. [1] Those vendors being a member of AOM means literally just a member only. They may or may not share any common interest. [1] https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2018/12/why-i-am-sceptical-about-av1/ https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2018/12/why-i-am-sceptical-abou...
audunw 7y ago
> Vendors kinda don't get why they need to waste silicon on AV1, and for whose money. I'm not an expert on HEVC or AV1 specifically, but in my experience the fundamental operations used by codecs are quite similar. You don't necessarily need significantly more silicon to add AV1-support. Remember that power-consumption is the main driver in IC development these days. It's not unreasonable to keep some dark silicon around to save power when needed.