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AOMedia Announces Year-End Launch of Next-Gen Video Codec AV2

79 points by future10se 1y ago

HelloUsername 1y ago
Is there any consumer-level hardware available that supports AV1 encoding yet?
- cma 1y ago
  Last two generations of nvidia or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVENC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVENC
- SpecialistK 1y ago
  Intel Arc, AMD Radeon 7000 series, Pixel 8, GeForce 40, and a few others.
  - brookst 1y ago
    (Disregard, misread encoding as decoding) ~~And iPhones and Macs since the A15 / M3 chips~~
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- throw0101d 1y ago
  See "Encoding" column in table: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Hardware_encoding_and_decoding_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Hardware_encoding_and_deco...
- mjh2539 1y ago
  Intel meteor lake chips support AV1 encode/decode.
jl6 1y ago
Is this intended to be competitive with h.266/VVC? And is it?
- throw0101d 1y ago
  > Is this intended to be competitive with h.266/VVC? And is it? Yes: > VVC is not alone in the video coding race. AV1, backed by AOMedia, has already gained traction, although its performance does not make it a direct competitor to VVC in high-end applications. The upcoming AV2, as well as AI-driven encoding techniques, could pose challenges to VVC’s success. Nevertheless, VVC’s strong technical foundation, industry support, and clear intellectual property structure position it as a promising long-term solution for video coding. * https://www.nokia.com/blog/the-future-of-video-compression-is-vvc-ready-for-prime-time/ https://www.nokia.com/blog/the-future-of-video-compression-i... > For businesses focused on reducing operational costs, this is a key point in the h.266 vs av1 debate. While the H.266/VVC codec offers powerful compression improvements over h.265, AV1—and eventually AV2—may be more attractive thanks to simpler licensing and long-term affordability. * https://www.dacast.com/blog/h266-vvc-versatile-video-coding/ https://www.dacast.com/blog/h266-vvc-versatile-video-coding/ Not qualified to answer.
- cogman10 1y ago
  AV1 competes with VVC. AV2 will be competitive with h.267
  - maeln 1y ago
    In terms of pure compression ratio AV1 compete mostly with h265/HVEC in most cases. It does perform pretty well for low bitrate and specific situation like synthetic noise, but h265 is usually better for higher bitrate situations. Hopefully, AV2 will be able to compete with the future H267. But to be honest, video codec have gotten so good these days, I just hope that we get a reasonably fast open-source encoder. AV1 and HVEC can already turn a 50Go bluray into an almost visually lossless 5~3Go file.
    - dastbe 1y ago
djfobbz 1y ago
Anyone use AV1? How good is it? What are your thoughts on AV2?
- Caspy7 1y ago
  Lots of people are using AV1. They just don't know it.
- Thaxll 1y ago
  Encoder are extremely slow.
  - lern_too_spel 1y ago
    SVT-AV1 is the fastest software encoder for pretty much any level of quality you would want. https://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/21/video-engineering/av1-codec-facebook-instagram-reels/attachment/av1-computation-tradeoffs/ https://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/21/video-engineering/av1-...
- jjcm 1y ago
  I implemented an encoding pipeline for AV1 for vids uploaded to my social news site (think reddit competitor except I'm extremely small fry). I eventually removed the code for it. While the space savings and quality improvements are good, the encoding speed is an order of magnitude slower than using h264/vp9. In the end the user experience of causing people to wait significantly longer for an AV1 encode wasn't worth the tradeoff. To fix the user experience problem, I still had to encode a h264 version anyway, which kinda defeats the point when it comes to space savings. You still get data transfer improvements, but the break even point for when the encoding costs offset the data transfer costs were around 1000 views per min of video encoded, and as an average I'm far below that. IMO there's a reason why YouTube only encodes AV1 for certain videos - I suspect it's based off of a view count. Past that point they trigger a AV1 encode, but it isn't worth it to do all videos, at least right now. Worth keeping in mind I was looking at this ~2 years ago, so things may have evolved since then.
  - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
dylan604 1y ago
"AV1 adoption is accelerating" But before it is widely used and accepted, here's AV2 for you to have compatibility issues with in the wild With the ubiquity of h.264 and the patents expiring, will anyone but streamers care?
- craftkiller 1y ago
  I do. I watch scifi shows over the internet with my friends. We watch it together on a web page with an html5 video element served out of my apartment. I've had to re-encode it to 3 megabits per second (to avoid stutter/buffering) with no b-frames. When initially setting it up, I tested both H264 and AV1 at that bitrate and H264 looked considerably worse. No surprise there, considering H264 is old enough to drink (22 years) whereas AV1 is only 7 years old.
- free_bip 1y ago
  I understand the point you're trying to make, but I think I can at least sort of understand why they're going with this speed of release cadence. If the release cadence is too slow, you might end up with another JPEG situation where the new codec is undeniably better in every way, but nobody wants to implement it since the old standard was around for so long without any competition.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    If you're going to do that, then the new thing must be so much better than the old thing that makes the pain of switching to the new thing worth while. By the time h.265 encoding was trying to gain traction, h.264 encoding speeds were very fast. The image improvement was negligible with the main benefit being smaller file sizes. For the average user, the increased encoding times did not justify that. The switch from MPEG-2 to h.264 had very noticeable quality improvements so it did make it worth while for the slower encodes until h.264 was locked and key code included in CPUs. It was similar to the adoption rates of DVD from VHS compared to Blu-ray from DVD.
    - cubefox 1y ago
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
Great, another codec that makes old hardware obsolete through lack of hardware acceleration.
Velocifyer 1y ago
Wow
cubefox 1y ago
This might be a response to H.266/VVC, which was finalized in 2020 but apparently saw limited adoption so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding
twotwotwo 1y ago
The tech was surely locked down long ago if they're close to announcing, but just putting the dream out there that AV2 makes next-gen image compression more practical. AVIF's very effective at maintaining OK quality at low bitrates, but encoding at high quality on CPU (something like the common ~2bpp JPEG) was very slow. I think that slowed down adoption and was one of the reasons JXL still had a niche. Progressive mode would help for images too. Another great thing JXL has is lossless recompression of .jpg files, which is a smaller improvement than a whole new format, but much easier to deploy. Saving 22% beats saving 0%. Harder, of course, to see how that one would connect to any of AOMedia's other priorities.
dabinat 1y ago
It would be great if AV1 was as ubiquitous as H.264. Apple is very much holding things back by insisting that Safari only support AV1 on devices with hardware decoding (M3 and higher), even though other browsers use software decoding just fine. (Safari has a low market share but I have an above-average number of Mac / Safari users using my site)
- dmitrygr 1y ago
  I suspect (with no inside knowledge) that this is a battery life play. CPU decoding == bye bye battery. It is much better to force the server to serve you something that you CAN hardware-decode.
  - jchw 1y ago
    For AV1 this is true, but we don't really need to postulate about whether or not Apple plays games to suppress open codecs, they do it constantly. Like when they finally eventually added support for Opus, but not Ogg containers, so you had to stuff Opus in a CAF that only Safari can support. Opus is also now supported in WebM, but you still can't just decode Ogg Opus, and there is still no sensible audio-only Opus container supported in Safari right now. Apple devices have had accelerated VP9 devices for literally years, which didn't stop them from simply not supporting VP9 during that time period, despite no reason (i.e. battery life) and despite that it has been patent unencumbered for that entire period. And so much for battery life... If you are on a Wikimedia website on an iPad, it will use open codecs no matter what, and if you are on an Apple device, you might just get a software decoder in WebAssembly instead, if you're not on a new enough OS.
    - dither8 1y ago
      > Opus is also now supported in WebM, but you still can't just decode Ogg Opus Apparently Ogg Opus and Ogg Vorbis has been supported since 18.4 (Mar 2025)[1] I think it would be great to see more adoption of Opus in podcasting personally. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-18_4-release-notes#Media https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not...
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
Totally different goal, but I wish there was a liberatory/non/less-encumbered form for realtime video production too. A lot of good streaming hardware does jpeg-xs, ISO/IEC 21122, for real-time encoding basically from the camera to the mix station. It's still extremely high bit-rate mostly, but very low latencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XS

79 points by future10se 1y ago

HelloUsername 1y ago

Is there any consumer-level hardware available that supports AV1 encoding yet?

cma 1y ago
Last two generations of nvidia or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVENC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVENC
SpecialistK 1y ago
Intel Arc, AMD Radeon 7000 series, Pixel 8, GeForce 40, and a few others.
- brookst 1y ago
  (Disregard, misread encoding as decoding) ~~And iPhones and Macs since the A15 / M3 chips~~
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
throw0101d 1y ago
See "Encoding" column in table: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Hardware_encoding_and_decoding_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Hardware_encoding_and_deco...
mjh2539 1y ago
Intel meteor lake chips support AV1 encode/decode.

jl6 1y ago

Is this intended to be competitive with h.266/VVC? And is it?

throw0101d 1y ago
> Is this intended to be competitive with h.266/VVC? And is it? Yes: > VVC is not alone in the video coding race. AV1, backed by AOMedia, has already gained traction, although its performance does not make it a direct competitor to VVC in high-end applications. The upcoming AV2, as well as AI-driven encoding techniques, could pose challenges to VVC’s success. Nevertheless, VVC’s strong technical foundation, industry support, and clear intellectual property structure position it as a promising long-term solution for video coding. * https://www.nokia.com/blog/the-future-of-video-compression-is-vvc-ready-for-prime-time/ https://www.nokia.com/blog/the-future-of-video-compression-i... > For businesses focused on reducing operational costs, this is a key point in the h.266 vs av1 debate. While the H.266/VVC codec offers powerful compression improvements over h.265, AV1—and eventually AV2—may be more attractive thanks to simpler licensing and long-term affordability. * https://www.dacast.com/blog/h266-vvc-versatile-video-coding/ https://www.dacast.com/blog/h266-vvc-versatile-video-coding/ Not qualified to answer.
cogman10 1y ago
AV1 competes with VVC. AV2 will be competitive with h.267
- maeln 1y ago
  In terms of pure compression ratio AV1 compete mostly with h265/HVEC in most cases. It does perform pretty well for low bitrate and specific situation like synthetic noise, but h265 is usually better for higher bitrate situations. Hopefully, AV2 will be able to compete with the future H267. But to be honest, video codec have gotten so good these days, I just hope that we get a reasonably fast open-source encoder. AV1 and HVEC can already turn a 50Go bluray into an almost visually lossless 5~3Go file.
  - dastbe 1y ago

djfobbz 1y ago

Anyone use AV1? How good is it? What are your thoughts on AV2?

Caspy7 1y ago
Lots of people are using AV1. They just don't know it.
Thaxll 1y ago
Encoder are extremely slow.
- lern_too_spel 1y ago
  SVT-AV1 is the fastest software encoder for pretty much any level of quality you would want. https://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/21/video-engineering/av1-codec-facebook-instagram-reels/attachment/av1-computation-tradeoffs/ https://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/21/video-engineering/av1-...
jjcm 1y ago
I implemented an encoding pipeline for AV1 for vids uploaded to my social news site (think reddit competitor except I'm extremely small fry). I eventually removed the code for it. While the space savings and quality improvements are good, the encoding speed is an order of magnitude slower than using h264/vp9. In the end the user experience of causing people to wait significantly longer for an AV1 encode wasn't worth the tradeoff. To fix the user experience problem, I still had to encode a h264 version anyway, which kinda defeats the point when it comes to space savings. You still get data transfer improvements, but the break even point for when the encoding costs offset the data transfer costs were around 1000 views per min of video encoded, and as an average I'm far below that. IMO there's a reason why YouTube only encodes AV1 for certain videos - I suspect it's based off of a view count. Past that point they trigger a AV1 encode, but it isn't worth it to do all videos, at least right now. Worth keeping in mind I was looking at this ~2 years ago, so things may have evolved since then.
- DiogenesKynikos 1y ago

dylan604 1y ago

"AV1 adoption is accelerating" But before it is widely used and accepted, here's AV2 for you to have compatibility issues with in the wild With the ubiquity of h.264 and the patents expiring, will anyone but streamers care?

craftkiller 1y ago
I do. I watch scifi shows over the internet with my friends. We watch it together on a web page with an html5 video element served out of my apartment. I've had to re-encode it to 3 megabits per second (to avoid stutter/buffering) with no b-frames. When initially setting it up, I tested both H264 and AV1 at that bitrate and H264 looked considerably worse. No surprise there, considering H264 is old enough to drink (22 years) whereas AV1 is only 7 years old.
free_bip 1y ago
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I think I can at least sort of understand why they're going with this speed of release cadence. If the release cadence is too slow, you might end up with another JPEG situation where the new codec is undeniably better in every way, but nobody wants to implement it since the old standard was around for so long without any competition.
- dylan604 1y ago
  If you're going to do that, then the new thing must be so much better than the old thing that makes the pain of switching to the new thing worth while. By the time h.265 encoding was trying to gain traction, h.264 encoding speeds were very fast. The image improvement was negligible with the main benefit being smaller file sizes. For the average user, the increased encoding times did not justify that. The switch from MPEG-2 to h.264 had very noticeable quality improvements so it did make it worth while for the slower encodes until h.264 was locked and key code included in CPUs. It was similar to the adoption rates of DVD from VHS compared to Blu-ray from DVD.
  - cubefox 1y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

Great, another codec that makes old hardware obsolete through lack of hardware acceleration.

Velocifyer 1y ago

Wow

cubefox 1y ago

This might be a response to H.266/VVC, which was finalized in 2020 but apparently saw limited adoption so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding

twotwotwo 1y ago

The tech was surely locked down long ago if they're close to announcing, but just putting the dream out there that AV2 makes next-gen image compression more practical. AVIF's very effective at maintaining OK quality at low bitrates, but encoding at high quality on CPU (something like the common ~2bpp JPEG) was very slow. I think that slowed down adoption and was one of the reasons JXL still had a niche. Progressive mode would help for images too. Another great thing JXL has is lossless recompression of .jpg files, which is a smaller improvement than a whole new format, but much easier to deploy. Saving 22% beats saving 0%. Harder, of course, to see how that one would connect to any of AOMedia's other priorities.

dabinat 1y ago

It would be great if AV1 was as ubiquitous as H.264. Apple is very much holding things back by insisting that Safari only support AV1 on devices with hardware decoding (M3 and higher), even though other browsers use software decoding just fine. (Safari has a low market share but I have an above-average number of Mac / Safari users using my site)

dmitrygr 1y ago
I suspect (with no inside knowledge) that this is a battery life play. CPU decoding == bye bye battery. It is much better to force the server to serve you something that you CAN hardware-decode.
- jchw 1y ago
  For AV1 this is true, but we don't really need to postulate about whether or not Apple plays games to suppress open codecs, they do it constantly. Like when they finally eventually added support for Opus, but not Ogg containers, so you had to stuff Opus in a CAF that only Safari can support. Opus is also now supported in WebM, but you still can't just decode Ogg Opus, and there is still no sensible audio-only Opus container supported in Safari right now. Apple devices have had accelerated VP9 devices for literally years, which didn't stop them from simply not supporting VP9 during that time period, despite no reason (i.e. battery life) and despite that it has been patent unencumbered for that entire period. And so much for battery life... If you are on a Wikimedia website on an iPad, it will use open codecs no matter what, and if you are on an Apple device, you might just get a software decoder in WebAssembly instead, if you're not on a new enough OS.
  - dither8 1y ago
    > Opus is also now supported in WebM, but you still can't just decode Ogg Opus Apparently Ogg Opus and Ogg Vorbis has been supported since 18.4 (Mar 2025)[1] I think it would be great to see more adoption of Opus in podcasting personally. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-18_4-release-notes#Media https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not...

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

Totally different goal, but I wish there was a liberatory/non/less-encumbered form for realtime video production too. A lot of good streaming hardware does jpeg-xs, ISO/IEC 21122, for real-time encoding basically from the camera to the mix station. It's still extremely high bit-rate mostly, but very low latencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XS