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This is completely pointless without considering the power used to transmit the data. He has AVIF using about 30% more power than Webp, while creating files a l

This is completely pointless without considering the power used to transmit the data. He has AVIF using about 30% more power than Webp, while creating files a little more than half the size of webp. Well one has to consider the power used to transmit the files. If I had to guess the power to transmit is much higher than the CPU rendering power and one should just optimize for smaller file sizes while keeping image quality and rendering time acceptable. For the usual person to get that file on the internet, one needs the processors of about 20 routers/switches and the like to move the data back and forth, the data has to go through a couple of hundred of kilometers of distance (at least) on fiber optic, the signal being generated by power hungry lasers, etc.

izacus 3y ago
I work on mobile and power use of radios seriously eclipses power use of any media decoders later - there's a reason why "race to idle" is so important to battery life. This article is kinda funny and quanit with it's carbon calculations while ignoring the biggest difference in power use.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  In other words: if data goes over the air, [smallest files] practically always wins. (besides saving recipients' data budgets)
youngtaff 3y ago
You would also need to consider the power usage to encode the images and AVIF can be pretty high there and it’s computational costs are larger than the other formats
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  Not really because the image is encoded only once and the image is typically then served over the Internet a huge number of times.
  - nextaccountic 3y ago
    One should still add them up, the results may be surprising (One should also account for the energy spent bookkeeping all energy expenditure)
  - youngtaff 3y ago
    IRL an image is likely to be transcoded multiple times… Say you upload a high res source image to Cloudinary (or similar), then it gets requested in multiple sizes… each size will need to be generated. Each generated version might be cached for a while but then at some point will get evicted so will need to be regenerate when someone requests it I’ve worked with sites where this is exactly the case

izacus 3y ago

I work on mobile and power use of radios seriously eclipses power use of any media decoders later - there's a reason why "race to idle" is so important to battery life. This article is kinda funny and quanit with it's carbon calculations while ignoring the biggest difference in power use.

RetroTechie 3y ago
In other words: if data goes over the air, [smallest files] practically always wins. (besides saving recipients' data budgets)

youngtaff 3y ago

You would also need to consider the power usage to encode the images and AVIF can be pretty high there and it’s computational costs are larger than the other formats

TacticalCoder 3y ago
Not really because the image is encoded only once and the image is typically then served over the Internet a huge number of times.
- nextaccountic 3y ago
  One should still add them up, the results may be surprising (One should also account for the energy spent bookkeeping all energy expenditure)
- youngtaff 3y ago
  IRL an image is likely to be transcoded multiple times… Say you upload a high res source image to Cloudinary (or similar), then it gets requested in multiple sizes… each size will need to be generated. Each generated version might be cached for a while but then at some point will get evicted so will need to be regenerate when someone requests it I’ve worked with sites where this is exactly the case