6 ms·

Intel becomes the first to offer full AV1 support with its new Arc GPUs

88 points by clouddrover 5y ago

clouddrover 5y ago
The AV1 section of the Intel Arc Graphics announcement video: https://youtu.be/q25yaUE4XH8?t=598 https://youtu.be/q25yaUE4XH8?t=598
chews 5y ago
Built in Puerto Rico fabs if I’m not mistaken
- wmf 5y ago
  No, I don't think TSMC N6 is made in Puerto Rico.
zionic 5y ago
Finally! Given the large overall percentage of web bandwidth that’s video this will really help. Hopefully Apple pushes this over HEVC/VVC garbage in their next release.
- whydid 5y ago
  They have hardware acceleration for encoding and decoding HEVC in all their products. Why would they promote a new codec without hardware acceleration?
- miohtama 5y ago
  Apple is a stakeholder in HEVC patents so I would expect them to fight to the bitter end against non-Apple invented technologies.
  - garblegarble 5y ago
    Apple is also a member of the alliance making AV1, The Alliance For Open Media
    - tux3 5y ago
      Apple's history of membership in AOM is complicated™. They joined late and became a founding member retroactively, but I wouldn't use that as a very strong signal. Apple is never the first to support open standards.
      - ysleepy 5y ago
        html5 ? caldav/carddav (their spec though)? usb-c? avahi/mdns? they do sometimes get a standards boner, it's just very specific and strategic.
        posguy 5y ago
        Yet HTML5 isn't a first class citizen on Apple's most popular operating system, nor is USB-C even on Apple's current best selling product.
        enos_feedler 5y ago
        Uh? Shipping a phone with Safari built in and being high performance and supporting things like WebAssembly and WebGPU all the way down to the metal is certainly first class
        spartanatreyu 5y ago
        Safari and first class shouldn't really be used in the same sentence.
        grapescheesee 5y ago
        Well, if you don't like it you can just change the default browser.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  Google's own devices don't have hardware support for AV1 playback yet. It's probably a bit early to complain about Apple.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >It's probably a bit early to complain about Apple. Why? Apple mints new silicon by its own design every year like swiss clock work. Google on the other hand, depends on the likes of Quallcomm, Mediatek and Samsung for the silicon, whenever they decide to add AV1 IP blocks, leading to a chicken and egg situation. Google could probably fore their hand by switching to AV1 before HW support arrives, but then Youtube UX will suck on all smartphones leading to shit battery life and overheating. Plus, video codec IP blocks are always a hot potato for the SoC vendors as they're tied in various third party licensing and patent schemes they don't like to deal with.
    - SllX 5y ago
      Yeah but given the lead times on Apple silicon, I would expect that if they hadn’t already made the decision to support AV1, then we’re not going to see it for a few years. Conversely if they made the decision a few years ago, we might start to see support trickle out across their lines starting this year.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        With VP9 Apple added decode to their custom hardware and then didn't tell anyone until they started to support it in software a few years later.
    - GeekyBear 5y ago
      > Google could probably fore their hand by switching to AV1 before HW support arrives, but then Youtube UX will suck on all smartphones leading to shit battery life and overheating. Google could also face yet more antitrust action if they continue to use their Youtube monopoly as a weapon against competition as they previously have with Microsoft's Windows Phone and Amazon's Echo Show.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  > Hopefully Apple pushes this over HEVC/VVC garbage in their next release. I think AV1 is neat, but calling it HEVC "garbage" seems harsh considering the enormous leap H.265 represents over H.264. Even if AV1 is ~20% more efficient than HEVC, lots of "better" codecs have failed to become mainstream. Because VVC appears to trounce* AV1, Apple may just skip AV1. (*https://www.winxdvd.com/video-transcoder/h266-vvc-vs-av1.htm#:~:text=According%20to%20BBC%20R%26D%2C%20AV1,higher%20compression%20efficiency%20than%20AV1 https://www.winxdvd.com/video-transcoder/h266-vvc-vs-av1.htm....) > …this will really help. An Intel-made laptop GPU is not going to be the thing that makes or breaks AV1.
  - mchusma 5y ago
    VVC is great, but AV1 is fast enough for realtime use, while VVC is not. Cisco has had it working for some time. Basically, AV1 to me seems like it's basically a zero tradeoff solution vs older codecs, so is a good "new standard" to base around then think about what is next from here. https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/cisco-leap-frogs-h-264-video-collaboration-with-real-time-av1-codec/ https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/cisco-leap-frogs-h...
    - CharlesW 5y ago
      > VVC is great, but AV1 is fast enough for realtime use, while VVC is not. Today, in software. But yes, definitely worth considering!
  - ksec 5y ago
    >I think AV1 is neat, but calling it HEVC "garbage" seems harsh That is what the AOM camp has been doing since 2015.
  - zionic 5y ago
    Oh I like HEVC in theory, but its patent encumbrance/licensing has delayed it’s rollout immeasurably. These realities far outweigh the technical benefits IMO.
    - 5y ago
rektide 5y ago
I'm double surprised! I really thought av1 was.gonna take a long time to encode. I wonder if it can do the same as before... can it do 4k60? I dunno what existing GPUs can do tbh. Also surprised the efficiency is t that wildly much of a leap. 50% over h264, 20% over h265. Maybe this is part of the tradeoff when trying to encode realtime, versus offline & in multiple passes. I feel like for offline encoding there's way bigger gains but I dunno!
mcraiha 5y ago
Also software decoding of AV1 is already fast enough, so specially what game streaming people need is the AV1 hardware encoder https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/dav1d#results https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/dav1d#results
- baybal2 5y ago
  > 20% over h265 On what codec settings?. IMO h256 and AV1 are extremely close depending on individual, and still experimental, codec tweaks. MP3 coding was near garbage at 128kbps, but over the years the codec community managed to make 128kbps significantly better audibly without changing the format Next gen h256 coders will likely copy whatever non-bitstream optimisation they can from AV1 coders, and they will be a near match again.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    >> Next gen h256 coders will likely copy whatever non-bitstream optimisation they can from AV1 coders, and they will be a near match again. Not only is that speculation, but more importantly they will not be copying the licensing terms of AV1.
  - joshcryer 5y ago
    AV1 beats h265 by some 10-15% and it's still improving. h265 has had plenty of time to mature. I don't think there's much headroom for h265 and anyway the JVET/MPEG has moved on to VVC, which beats AV1 by some 25-29% and it is still improving. They know they'll lose the short term war and are looking longer term. AV1 was supposed to be "on par" with h265 but has jumped ahead by a bit and will likely improve for quite awhile until AV2 is worked on. Will it reach VVC levels? Probably not. But it will certainly be better than h265/HVEC. Source for size comparisons: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/apsipa-transactions-on-signal-and-information-processing/article/compression-efficiency-analysis-of-av1-vvc-and-hevc-for-random-access-applications/D2345DDC3750055AB0AA3D24FCF743BE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/apsipa-transactions-...
    - kingcharles 5y ago
jalino23 5y ago
I’m new to codecs coming from frontend webdev mostly JS. is anyone able to point me to some resources on how to know via cli or programmatically to detect if a hardware codec is installed? and if it’s currently being utilized by web video player the two ways I recently learned is only for listing codecs. for windows is via legacy media player for linux is via ffmpeg and I’m still confused how video players talk to codecs and why they are installed separately and how code can interface with them if they are installed seperately
- spartanatreyu 5y ago
  If you're publishing videos on your own website, making sure there's an mp4 (h264) and maybe a webm (vp8/vp9) source inside a `<video>` element is good enough. You can probably add an av1 source in 2-3 years. If you really need to pull things out of a video, you can either read the bytes directly from a blob, or render the video to a canvas and pull the pixel data out of there. Don't worry, there is a 0.00001% chance of you needing to do this. You will likely never touch anything like a codec from JS ever.
gotaquestion 5y ago
Surprised to see Intel using "ARC" as a trademark when ARC international has been around for ages and bought by Synopsys in 2010, which now offers ARC processors. I thought trademarks in the same domain weren't allowed?
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Even stranger is Intel Ark has been their specs repo for a long time. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html

88 points by clouddrover 5y ago

The AV1 section of the Intel Arc Graphics announcement video: https://youtu.be/q25yaUE4XH8?t=598 https://youtu.be/q25yaUE4XH8?t=598

chews 5y ago

Built in Puerto Rico fabs if I’m not mistaken

wmf 5y ago
No, I don't think TSMC N6 is made in Puerto Rico.

zionic 5y ago

Finally! Given the large overall percentage of web bandwidth that’s video this will really help. Hopefully Apple pushes this over HEVC/VVC garbage in their next release.

whydid 5y ago
They have hardware acceleration for encoding and decoding HEVC in all their products. Why would they promote a new codec without hardware acceleration?
miohtama 5y ago
Apple is a stakeholder in HEVC patents so I would expect them to fight to the bitter end against non-Apple invented technologies.
- garblegarble 5y ago
  Apple is also a member of the alliance making AV1, The Alliance For Open Media
  - tux3 5y ago
    Apple's history of membership in AOM is complicated™. They joined late and became a founding member retroactively, but I wouldn't use that as a very strong signal. Apple is never the first to support open standards.
    - ysleepy 5y ago
      html5 ? caldav/carddav (their spec though)? usb-c? avahi/mdns? they do sometimes get a standards boner, it's just very specific and strategic.
      - posguy 5y ago
        Yet HTML5 isn't a first class citizen on Apple's most popular operating system, nor is USB-C even on Apple's current best selling product.
        enos_feedler 5y ago
        Uh? Shipping a phone with Safari built in and being high performance and supporting things like WebAssembly and WebGPU all the way down to the metal is certainly first class
        spartanatreyu 5y ago
        Safari and first class shouldn't really be used in the same sentence.
        grapescheesee 5y ago
        Well, if you don't like it you can just change the default browser.
GeekyBear 5y ago
Google's own devices don't have hardware support for AV1 playback yet. It's probably a bit early to complain about Apple.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >It's probably a bit early to complain about Apple. Why? Apple mints new silicon by its own design every year like swiss clock work. Google on the other hand, depends on the likes of Quallcomm, Mediatek and Samsung for the silicon, whenever they decide to add AV1 IP blocks, leading to a chicken and egg situation. Google could probably fore their hand by switching to AV1 before HW support arrives, but then Youtube UX will suck on all smartphones leading to shit battery life and overheating. Plus, video codec IP blocks are always a hot potato for the SoC vendors as they're tied in various third party licensing and patent schemes they don't like to deal with.
  - SllX 5y ago
    Yeah but given the lead times on Apple silicon, I would expect that if they hadn’t already made the decision to support AV1, then we’re not going to see it for a few years. Conversely if they made the decision a few years ago, we might start to see support trickle out across their lines starting this year.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      With VP9 Apple added decode to their custom hardware and then didn't tell anyone until they started to support it in software a few years later.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    > Google could probably fore their hand by switching to AV1 before HW support arrives, but then Youtube UX will suck on all smartphones leading to shit battery life and overheating. Google could also face yet more antitrust action if they continue to use their Youtube monopoly as a weapon against competition as they previously have with Microsoft's Windows Phone and Amazon's Echo Show.
CharlesW 5y ago
> Hopefully Apple pushes this over HEVC/VVC garbage in their next release. I think AV1 is neat, but calling it HEVC "garbage" seems harsh considering the enormous leap H.265 represents over H.264. Even if AV1 is ~20% more efficient than HEVC, lots of "better" codecs have failed to become mainstream. Because VVC appears to trounce* AV1, Apple may just skip AV1. (*https://www.winxdvd.com/video-transcoder/h266-vvc-vs-av1.htm#:~:text=According%20to%20BBC%20R%26D%2C%20AV1,higher%20compression%20efficiency%20than%20AV1 https://www.winxdvd.com/video-transcoder/h266-vvc-vs-av1.htm....) > …this will really help. An Intel-made laptop GPU is not going to be the thing that makes or breaks AV1.
- mchusma 5y ago
  VVC is great, but AV1 is fast enough for realtime use, while VVC is not. Cisco has had it working for some time. Basically, AV1 to me seems like it's basically a zero tradeoff solution vs older codecs, so is a good "new standard" to base around then think about what is next from here. https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/cisco-leap-frogs-h-264-video-collaboration-with-real-time-av1-codec/ https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/cisco-leap-frogs-h...
  - CharlesW 5y ago
    > VVC is great, but AV1 is fast enough for realtime use, while VVC is not. Today, in software. But yes, definitely worth considering!
- ksec 5y ago
  >I think AV1 is neat, but calling it HEVC "garbage" seems harsh That is what the AOM camp has been doing since 2015.
- zionic 5y ago
  Oh I like HEVC in theory, but its patent encumbrance/licensing has delayed it’s rollout immeasurably. These realities far outweigh the technical benefits IMO.
  - 5y ago

rektide 5y ago

I'm double surprised! I really thought av1 was.gonna take a long time to encode. I wonder if it can do the same as before... can it do 4k60? I dunno what existing GPUs can do tbh. Also surprised the efficiency is t that wildly much of a leap. 50% over h264, 20% over h265. Maybe this is part of the tradeoff when trying to encode realtime, versus offline & in multiple passes. I feel like for offline encoding there's way bigger gains but I dunno!

mcraiha 5y ago

Also software decoding of AV1 is already fast enough, so specially what game streaming people need is the AV1 hardware encoder https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/dav1d#results https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/dav1d#results

baybal2 5y ago
> 20% over h265 On what codec settings?. IMO h256 and AV1 are extremely close depending on individual, and still experimental, codec tweaks. MP3 coding was near garbage at 128kbps, but over the years the codec community managed to make 128kbps significantly better audibly without changing the format Next gen h256 coders will likely copy whatever non-bitstream optimisation they can from AV1 coders, and they will be a near match again.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> Next gen h256 coders will likely copy whatever non-bitstream optimisation they can from AV1 coders, and they will be a near match again. Not only is that speculation, but more importantly they will not be copying the licensing terms of AV1.
- joshcryer 5y ago
  AV1 beats h265 by some 10-15% and it's still improving. h265 has had plenty of time to mature. I don't think there's much headroom for h265 and anyway the JVET/MPEG has moved on to VVC, which beats AV1 by some 25-29% and it is still improving. They know they'll lose the short term war and are looking longer term. AV1 was supposed to be "on par" with h265 but has jumped ahead by a bit and will likely improve for quite awhile until AV2 is worked on. Will it reach VVC levels? Probably not. But it will certainly be better than h265/HVEC. Source for size comparisons: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/apsipa-transactions-on-signal-and-information-processing/article/compression-efficiency-analysis-of-av1-vvc-and-hevc-for-random-access-applications/D2345DDC3750055AB0AA3D24FCF743BE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/apsipa-transactions-...
  - kingcharles 5y ago

jalino23 5y ago

I’m new to codecs coming from frontend webdev mostly JS. is anyone able to point me to some resources on how to know via cli or programmatically to detect if a hardware codec is installed? and if it’s currently being utilized by web video player the two ways I recently learned is only for listing codecs. for windows is via legacy media player for linux is via ffmpeg and I’m still confused how video players talk to codecs and why they are installed separately and how code can interface with them if they are installed seperately

spartanatreyu 5y ago
If you're publishing videos on your own website, making sure there's an mp4 (h264) and maybe a webm (vp8/vp9) source inside a `<video>` element is good enough. You can probably add an av1 source in 2-3 years. If you really need to pull things out of a video, you can either read the bytes directly from a blob, or render the video to a canvas and pull the pixel data out of there. Don't worry, there is a 0.00001% chance of you needing to do this. You will likely never touch anything like a codec from JS ever.

gotaquestion 5y ago

Surprised to see Intel using "ARC" as a trademark when ARC international has been around for ages and bought by Synopsys in 2010, which now offers ARC processors. I thought trademarks in the same domain weren't allowed?

JaimeThompson 5y ago
Even stranger is Intel Ark has been their specs repo for a long time. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html