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I'm surprised AV1 usage is only at 30%. Is AV1 so demanding that Netflix clients without AV1 hardware acceleration capabilities would be overwhelmed by it?

by Eduard 10mo ago

adgjlsfhk1 10mo ago
There are a lot of 10 year old TVs/fire sticks still in use that have a CPU that maxes out running the UI and rely exclusively on hardware decoding for all codecs (e.g. they couldn't hardware decode h264 either). Image a super budget phone from ~2012 and you'll have some idea the hardware capability we're dealing with.
FrostKiwi 10mo ago
Thanks to libdav1d's [1] lovingly hand crafted SIMD ASM instructions it's actually possible to reasonably playback AV1 without hardware acceleration, but basically yes: From Snapdragon 8 onwards, Google Tensor G3 onwards, NVIDIA RTX 3000 series onwards. All relatively new . [1] https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d
- snvzz 10mo ago
  Even RISC-V vector assembly[0]. 0. https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/-/issues/435 https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/-/issues/435
- jeffparsons 10mo ago
  It's possible without specific hardware acceleration, but murderous for mobile devices.
eru 10mo ago
If you are on a mobile device, decoding without hardware assistance might not overwhelm the processors directly, but it might drain your battery unnecessarily fast?
boterock 10mo ago
tv manufacturers don't want high end chips for their tv sets... hardware decoding is just a way to make cheaper chips for tvs.
johncolanduoni 10mo ago
Compression gains will mostly be for the benefit of the streaming platform’s bills/infra unless you’re trying to stream 4K 60fps on hotel wifi (or if you can’t decode last-gen codecs on hardware either ). Apparently streaming platforms still favor user experience enough to not heat their rooms for no observable improvement. Also a TV CPU can barely decode a PNG still in software - video decoding of any kind is simply impossible.
- solarkraft 10mo ago
  > Apparently streaming platforms still favor user experience enough to not heat their rooms for no observable improvement It’s more like “why does Netflix kill my battery within an hour when I used to be able to play for 20”
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
dd_xplore 10mo ago
They would be served h.265
MaxL93 10mo ago
I'd love to watch Netflix AV1 streams but they just straight up don't serve it to my smart TV or my Windows computers despite hardware acceleration support. The only way I can get them to serve me an AV1 stream is if I block "protected content IDs" through browser site settings. Otherwise they're giving me an H.264 stream... It's really silly, to say the least
solarkraft 10mo ago
Absolutely. Playing back any video codec is a terrible experience without acceleration.

I'm surprised AV1 usage is only at 30%. Is AV1 so demanding that Netflix clients without AV1 hardware acceleration capabilities would be overwhelmed by it?

by Eduard 10mo ago

I'm surprised AV1 usage is only at 30%. Is AV1 so demanding that Netflix clients without AV1 hardware acceleration capabilities would be overwhelmed by it?

adgjlsfhk1 10mo ago

There are a lot of 10 year old TVs/fire sticks still in use that have a CPU that maxes out running the UI and rely exclusively on hardware decoding for all codecs (e.g. they couldn't hardware decode h264 either). Image a super budget phone from ~2012 and you'll have some idea the hardware capability we're dealing with.

FrostKiwi 10mo ago

Thanks to libdav1d's [1] lovingly hand crafted SIMD ASM instructions it's actually possible to reasonably playback AV1 without hardware acceleration, but basically yes: From Snapdragon 8 onwards, Google Tensor G3 onwards, NVIDIA RTX 3000 series onwards. All relatively new . [1] https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d

snvzz 10mo ago
Even RISC-V vector assembly[0]. 0. https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/-/issues/435 https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/-/issues/435
jeffparsons 10mo ago
It's possible without specific hardware acceleration, but murderous for mobile devices.

eru 10mo ago

If you are on a mobile device, decoding without hardware assistance might not overwhelm the processors directly, but it might drain your battery unnecessarily fast?

boterock 10mo ago

tv manufacturers don't want high end chips for their tv sets... hardware decoding is just a way to make cheaper chips for tvs.

johncolanduoni 10mo ago

Compression gains will mostly be for the benefit of the streaming platform’s bills/infra unless you’re trying to stream 4K 60fps on hotel wifi (or if you can’t decode last-gen codecs on hardware either ). Apparently streaming platforms still favor user experience enough to not heat their rooms for no observable improvement. Also a TV CPU can barely decode a PNG still in software - video decoding of any kind is simply impossible.

solarkraft 10mo ago
> Apparently streaming platforms still favor user experience enough to not heat their rooms for no observable improvement It’s more like “why does Netflix kill my battery within an hour when I used to be able to play for 20”

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

dd_xplore 10mo ago

They would be served h.265

MaxL93 10mo ago

I'd love to watch Netflix AV1 streams but they just straight up don't serve it to my smart TV or my Windows computers despite hardware acceleration support. The only way I can get them to serve me an AV1 stream is if I block "protected content IDs" through browser site settings. Otherwise they're giving me an H.264 stream... It's really silly, to say the least

solarkraft 10mo ago

Absolutely. Playing back any video codec is a terrible experience without acceleration.