7 ms·

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 nex

by 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.
        MarkyC4 4y ago
        You can't on iOS. All browsers (including Firefox!) on iOS are wrappers around Safari, which is lagging behind on many HTML5 features
        enos_feedler 5y ago
        This thread is about first class HTML5 support. Why is Safari so bad btw?
        spartanatreyu 4y ago
        Well it's kind of a long story. The short version is that Apple overly focused on monetising their app store and doing everything conceivable they could get away with to push people towards it. If you wanted to release an app for iOS users you needed to purchase Apple hardware, and a yearly subscription just to start developing an app. Then to release the app you had to follow Apple's rules which allowed them to take a 30% cut of all profits generated with your app. If Apple really liked your app, they could just make their own version and kick yours off the app store without recourse so they could keep the other 70% of the profits. Meanwhile, users and developers could skirt around the app store by using Safari. This represented a direct threat to the largest revenue generating model that Apple had ever created. Apple needed to make sure that their ad campaign: "There's an app for that" always held true. So Apple did what it could to indirectly reduce the effectiveness of Safari, keeping it behind what other browsers could do. They even made it impossible for other browsers to be installed on their devices by adding rules to the app store that mandated that all web apps had to be powered by Safari's web view. In essence, all "web browsers" on iOS are just reskins of Safari, warts and all. Eventually this culminated in an article that basically became a lightning rod for developer's dealing with Apple's anti-competitive behaviour: https://nolanlawson.com/2015/06/30/safari-is-the-new-ie/ https://nolanlawson.com/2015/06/30/safari-is-the-new-ie/ The title of the article turned into a common saying amongst web developers, an accurate and concise summary of what was (and mostly still is) seen as a cancer on the industry: "Safari is the new IE". Apple consistently kept their browser years behind competing browsers, either holding back features, bringing out features that didn't address problems developers needed fixed, or bringing out features that were "broken as intended". This continued until their anticompetitive behaviour ended up the subject of several lawsuits. Apple's lawyers were traditionally able to bat away the many smaller claims levied against them until Epic could pay for enough lawyer's against Apple to try and make a dent. Regardless of the legal outcome of the lawsuit, it wound up shining a spotlight for several governments to pay more attention to their fair competition laws. You can see some recent news about this here: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/25/eu-provisionally-agrees-dma-law-apple-app-store/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/25/eu-provisionally-agrees... Now Apple is worried about losing their App Store monopoly on their own devices and has put a renewed focus on their web browser to try and keep people using their own products. Until about 2 years ago, Apple had been content to keep Safari consistently years behind competing browsers. Since then they have accelerated their development, trying to catch up with their betters.
      - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
        Ah yes, that Apple that at some point even adopted Jabber. Doesn't really exist anymore...
      - unmole 5y ago
        > avahi/mdns? Wasn't this more like Apple getting their tech standardized?
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 4y 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.
  - 4y ago

by 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.
        MarkyC4 4y ago
        You can't on iOS. All browsers (including Firefox!) on iOS are wrappers around Safari, which is lagging behind on many HTML5 features
        enos_feedler 5y ago
        This thread is about first class HTML5 support. Why is Safari so bad btw?
        spartanatreyu 4y ago
        Well it's kind of a long story. The short version is that Apple overly focused on monetising their app store and doing everything conceivable they could get away with to push people towards it. If you wanted to release an app for iOS users you needed to purchase Apple hardware, and a yearly subscription just to start developing an app. Then to release the app you had to follow Apple's rules which allowed them to take a 30% cut of all profits generated with your app. If Apple really liked your app, they could just make their own version and kick yours off the app store without recourse so they could keep the other 70% of the profits. Meanwhile, users and developers could skirt around the app store by using Safari. This represented a direct threat to the largest revenue generating model that Apple had ever created. Apple needed to make sure that their ad campaign: "There's an app for that" always held true. So Apple did what it could to indirectly reduce the effectiveness of Safari, keeping it behind what other browsers could do. They even made it impossible for other browsers to be installed on their devices by adding rules to the app store that mandated that all web apps had to be powered by Safari's web view. In essence, all "web browsers" on iOS are just reskins of Safari, warts and all. Eventually this culminated in an article that basically became a lightning rod for developer's dealing with Apple's anti-competitive behaviour: https://nolanlawson.com/2015/06/30/safari-is-the-new-ie/ https://nolanlawson.com/2015/06/30/safari-is-the-new-ie/ The title of the article turned into a common saying amongst web developers, an accurate and concise summary of what was (and mostly still is) seen as a cancer on the industry: "Safari is the new IE". Apple consistently kept their browser years behind competing browsers, either holding back features, bringing out features that didn't address problems developers needed fixed, or bringing out features that were "broken as intended". This continued until their anticompetitive behaviour ended up the subject of several lawsuits. Apple's lawyers were traditionally able to bat away the many smaller claims levied against them until Epic could pay for enough lawyer's against Apple to try and make a dent. Regardless of the legal outcome of the lawsuit, it wound up shining a spotlight for several governments to pay more attention to their fair competition laws. You can see some recent news about this here: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/25/eu-provisionally-agrees-dma-law-apple-app-store/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/25/eu-provisionally-agrees... Now Apple is worried about losing their App Store monopoly on their own devices and has put a renewed focus on their web browser to try and keep people using their own products. Until about 2 years ago, Apple had been content to keep Safari consistently years behind competing browsers. Since then they have accelerated their development, trying to catch up with their betters.
    - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
      Ah yes, that Apple that at some point even adopted Jabber. Doesn't really exist anymore...
    - unmole 5y ago
      > avahi/mdns? Wasn't this more like Apple getting their tech standardized?

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 4y 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.
- 4y ago