5 ms·

See also H.265: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding And now even H.266: *

See also H.265: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding And now even H.266: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding Also, at what point will AV1 become "mainstream"? How prevalent is it? Still seems that hardware decoding (never mind encoding) support is still only so-so.

afavour 5y ago
Yeah, in this era of mobile device dominance i think hardware decoding is key. Suspect Apple will add it then suddenly the Android SoC folks will suddenly consider it a priority and not before.
- vetinari 5y ago
  Apple won't add it; they traditionally ignore free codecs, and even if they implement them, it is so limited, so it is usable only in the narrow situation, where it is required (see Opus, for example). On the PC side, decoding is supported by Intel (since Tiger Lake), Nvidia (since 30x0) and AMD (since RDNA2). On the mobile side, it is supported by bunch of mobile chip vendors, like Mediatek or Samsung; so you can have an android device that does support AV1 already; on OS-side it is supported since Android 10. Vendors like Amlogic also support it, so settopboxes are also covered.
  - Maakuth 5y ago
    Apple is even a governing member of the alliance behind AV1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media), so the case could be different than with previous free codecs.
    - kmeisthax 5y ago
      Apple didn't care about free codecs before H.265 for the same reason ISO and Leonardo Chiariglione didn't: "the best codecs require big $$$ to research and competitive royalty-free codecs will stifle innovation by not sending money back to researchers"[0]. The ISO business model was to not care about patents as long as everyone agreed to charge FRAND rates, so they could just pick the best technology and rely on their creators' patent royalties to fund research. For Apple, they don't care about the cost, as long as the codec is suitable to implement in iPhones. That business model broke once Velos Media and Access Advance realized they could game the system by offering a handful of net-implementer companies severely reduced patent rates if they agreed to license their patents or, better yet, pull out of MPEG-LA entirely. The end result is that companies have to license significant portions of H.265 multiple times from three different patent pools... and most people who are even remotely cost-sensitive just aren't bothering with it at all and are sticking with H.264 or moving to AV1. Apple has yet to implement AV1 in hardware, which makes using the codec exclusively a non-starter as they have a very dim opinion of software decoders. I imagine they joined AOM to either hedge some bets or extract leverage from H.265/H.266 patent owners. The thing is that their business absolutely does not require the existence of a viable royalty-free codec, unlike Google's, which does. We'll know if Apple's actually decided to join the Free video party if they actually ship an AV1 decoder in their silicon. [0] Leonardo is very vocally opposed to AOM's lack-of-a-business-model, see: https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solution/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solu... https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-future-without-mpeg/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-future-without-mpeg/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/revisiting-the-patents-in-standards-issue/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/revisiting-the-patents-in-stan... If you're wondering, he's the former chair of MPEG, before ISO decided to cut up MPEG into a bunch of different pieces and more or less left him without a job. He's salty about that too: https://blog.chiariglione.org/iso/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/iso/
  - idonotknowwhy 5y ago
    No raspberry pi support?
  - fomine3 5y ago
    A14 supports AV1 decode. Qualcomm is criminal in this case.
- themerone 5y ago
  Qualcomm (a major holder of mpeg patents) recently announced AV1 support in their future chips. They were the last holdout among Android vendors.
ksec 5y ago
The Broadcasting industry has definitely sided with VVC. So 8K broadcast will likely be using VVC along with possibly LCEVC [1] as announced by the Brazilian SBTVD standard. The AV1 question is harder to answer. One could argue VP9 is good enough and a few more years before it reach 100% VP9 hardware decoding on Smartphone. Of course Google could force the usage of AV1 in the future if they slowly phaseout VP9 video and only support AV1 on Youtube, while using H.264 as baseline. Qualcomm should have AV1 decoding on Snapdragon by late 2022 / 2023. Mediatek are starting to roll AV1 decoding as well. No timeline on encoding and generally speaking I dont expect any mobile hardware vendor to use AV1 encoding in the near future. Even to this day I still do not believe Apple will support AV1 decode, at least not until Google forced the AV1 usage. That is a very contrarian view not just on HN but generally on the internet. But recent news with MPEGLA and AccessAdvance might have change things bit. [1] vhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Even to this day I still do not believe Apple will support AV1 decode, at least not until Google forced the AV1 usage. Even though they joined AOM four years ago: * https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/04/3-reasons-apple-just-joined-the-alliance-for-open-media/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/04/3-reasons-apple-just-join... * https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/01/04/apple-joins-alliance-for-open-media-signaling-support-for-av1-video https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/01/04/apple-joins-allia... * https://bitmovin.com/apple-joins-av1-codec-consortium/ https://bitmovin.com/apple-joins-av1-codec-consortium/ * https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=122476 https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?Art...
  - ksec 5y ago
    They were somehow a founding member of AOM 12 months after the announcement because someone "add" their "name" on the list and only found out by a CNET journalist. And four years later AOM still dont have permission to use the official Apple logo on that page. Compared to previous HEVC and VVC showing where Apple logo were officially presented. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence to say the least. The only recent changes were Apple's name somehow disappeared in both AccessAdvance and MPEGLA list.
mihaic 5y ago
What I think the AV1 initiative neglects as a way of spreading their tech would be giving away a great open implementation of an encoder. x265 and x264 spread their respective codecs all over the internet through pirated content, which forced adoption. The fact that you can play .mkv files almost anywhere now is a testament to that.
- planck01 5y ago
  I think backing companies like Google and Netflix don't care about that. They need hardware decoding support in phones and TVs, and they will serve av1 from their platforms and save a lot of money. It might become the dominant codec without you even noticing it.
  - mihaic 5y ago
    Sure, but I meant that hardware support is implemented if vendors are forced to support something -- such as user downloaded files. Netflix will serve both av1, h265 and h264, so my TV doesn't have to implement av1 support.
    - verall 5y ago
      HW vendors have already/are implementing AV1 because they were on the big consortium and the industry is a bit more grown up now. AV1 is a big compromise between a bunch of vendors. It is definitely the future, the powers that be have already decreed this, but these things move slowly.
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    Couldn’t they reuse the tensor cores that are shipped in every device at this point? There are already lots of papers on compressing images using deep learning, I don’t see any reason why the companies couldn’t make a video standard that relies on that hardware.
    - goeiedaggoeie 5y ago
      having a hardware encoder and decoder on a device is super useful for streaming content of that device. Not sure I would want to use other compute for that, that compute is much better used doing CV on the video stream :)

afavour 5y ago

Yeah, in this era of mobile device dominance i think hardware decoding is key. Suspect Apple will add it then suddenly the Android SoC folks will suddenly consider it a priority and not before.

vetinari 5y ago
Apple won't add it; they traditionally ignore free codecs, and even if they implement them, it is so limited, so it is usable only in the narrow situation, where it is required (see Opus, for example). On the PC side, decoding is supported by Intel (since Tiger Lake), Nvidia (since 30x0) and AMD (since RDNA2). On the mobile side, it is supported by bunch of mobile chip vendors, like Mediatek or Samsung; so you can have an android device that does support AV1 already; on OS-side it is supported since Android 10. Vendors like Amlogic also support it, so settopboxes are also covered.
- Maakuth 5y ago
  Apple is even a governing member of the alliance behind AV1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media), so the case could be different than with previous free codecs.
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    Apple didn't care about free codecs before H.265 for the same reason ISO and Leonardo Chiariglione didn't: "the best codecs require big $$$ to research and competitive royalty-free codecs will stifle innovation by not sending money back to researchers"[0]. The ISO business model was to not care about patents as long as everyone agreed to charge FRAND rates, so they could just pick the best technology and rely on their creators' patent royalties to fund research. For Apple, they don't care about the cost, as long as the codec is suitable to implement in iPhones. That business model broke once Velos Media and Access Advance realized they could game the system by offering a handful of net-implementer companies severely reduced patent rates if they agreed to license their patents or, better yet, pull out of MPEG-LA entirely. The end result is that companies have to license significant portions of H.265 multiple times from three different patent pools... and most people who are even remotely cost-sensitive just aren't bothering with it at all and are sticking with H.264 or moving to AV1. Apple has yet to implement AV1 in hardware, which makes using the codec exclusively a non-starter as they have a very dim opinion of software decoders. I imagine they joined AOM to either hedge some bets or extract leverage from H.265/H.266 patent owners. The thing is that their business absolutely does not require the existence of a viable royalty-free codec, unlike Google's, which does. We'll know if Apple's actually decided to join the Free video party if they actually ship an AV1 decoder in their silicon. [0] Leonardo is very vocally opposed to AOM's lack-of-a-business-model, see: https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solution/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solu... https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-future-without-mpeg/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-future-without-mpeg/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/revisiting-the-patents-in-standards-issue/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/revisiting-the-patents-in-stan... If you're wondering, he's the former chair of MPEG, before ISO decided to cut up MPEG into a bunch of different pieces and more or less left him without a job. He's salty about that too: https://blog.chiariglione.org/iso/ https://blog.chiariglione.org/iso/
- idonotknowwhy 5y ago
  No raspberry pi support?
- fomine3 5y ago
  A14 supports AV1 decode. Qualcomm is criminal in this case.
themerone 5y ago
Qualcomm (a major holder of mpeg patents) recently announced AV1 support in their future chips. They were the last holdout among Android vendors.

ksec 5y ago

The Broadcasting industry has definitely sided with VVC. So 8K broadcast will likely be using VVC along with possibly LCEVC [1] as announced by the Brazilian SBTVD standard. The AV1 question is harder to answer. One could argue VP9 is good enough and a few more years before it reach 100% VP9 hardware decoding on Smartphone. Of course Google could force the usage of AV1 in the future if they slowly phaseout VP9 video and only support AV1 on Youtube, while using H.264 as baseline. Qualcomm should have AV1 decoding on Snapdragon by late 2022 / 2023. Mediatek are starting to roll AV1 decoding as well. No timeline on encoding and generally speaking I dont expect any mobile hardware vendor to use AV1 encoding in the near future. Even to this day I still do not believe Apple will support AV1 decode, at least not until Google forced the AV1 usage. That is a very contrarian view not just on HN but generally on the internet. But recent news with MPEGLA and AccessAdvance might have change things bit. [1] vhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC

throw0101a 5y ago
> Even to this day I still do not believe Apple will support AV1 decode, at least not until Google forced the AV1 usage. Even though they joined AOM four years ago: * https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/04/3-reasons-apple-just-joined-the-alliance-for-open-media/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/04/3-reasons-apple-just-join... * https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/01/04/apple-joins-alliance-for-open-media-signaling-support-for-av1-video https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/01/04/apple-joins-allia... * https://bitmovin.com/apple-joins-av1-codec-consortium/ https://bitmovin.com/apple-joins-av1-codec-consortium/ * https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=122476 https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?Art...
- ksec 5y ago
  They were somehow a founding member of AOM 12 months after the announcement because someone "add" their "name" on the list and only found out by a CNET journalist. And four years later AOM still dont have permission to use the official Apple logo on that page. Compared to previous HEVC and VVC showing where Apple logo were officially presented. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence to say the least. The only recent changes were Apple's name somehow disappeared in both AccessAdvance and MPEGLA list.

mihaic 5y ago

What I think the AV1 initiative neglects as a way of spreading their tech would be giving away a great open implementation of an encoder. x265 and x264 spread their respective codecs all over the internet through pirated content, which forced adoption. The fact that you can play .mkv files almost anywhere now is a testament to that.

planck01 5y ago
I think backing companies like Google and Netflix don't care about that. They need hardware decoding support in phones and TVs, and they will serve av1 from their platforms and save a lot of money. It might become the dominant codec without you even noticing it.
- mihaic 5y ago
  Sure, but I meant that hardware support is implemented if vendors are forced to support something -- such as user downloaded files. Netflix will serve both av1, h265 and h264, so my TV doesn't have to implement av1 support.
  - verall 5y ago
    HW vendors have already/are implementing AV1 because they were on the big consortium and the industry is a bit more grown up now. AV1 is a big compromise between a bunch of vendors. It is definitely the future, the powers that be have already decreed this, but these things move slowly.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Couldn’t they reuse the tensor cores that are shipped in every device at this point? There are already lots of papers on compressing images using deep learning, I don’t see any reason why the companies couldn’t make a video standard that relies on that hardware.
  - goeiedaggoeie 5y ago
    having a hardware encoder and decoder on a device is super useful for streaming content of that device. Not sure I would want to use other compute for that, that compute is much better used doing CV on the video stream :)