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Based on AV1's trajectory, hardware encode isn't necessary (though it is nice). The current encoder is a reference encoder. Now that the spec is finalized, expect significant speed improvements from production encoders (realtime likely won't happen until we get it in hardware though)

> The biggest thing it does add though is multi-stream support

I would have thought this would be a part of the container format rather than the video codec?

The way things are going, we can pretty much forget about AV2 hardware encoders in PCs anytime soon. All the newest, best chip capacity is being completely hogged by Apple and AI companies.

Unless chipmakers port the AV2 design to older, cheaper nodes, it’s just not happening for average users. We’ll probably see some Chinese TV chip makers throw in an AV2 decoder just to check a box, but as an actual encoder? I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.

Looking at how GPU development has been sidetracked for NPU, I worry that this is 2035 target at best. Manufacturers will push for maximising matrix operation silicon area. In the era of trillion dollar investments into datacenters, traffic cost is afterthought. The only benefitors might be YouTube, Netflix and such, but on their scale investment into ISP level caches might be cheaper.

> enabling high-quality video delivery at significantly lower bitrates

> likely will remain so til ~2028 when the first av2 hardware accelerated chips start dropping

This might sound dumb, but whats the point if its intended for slower devices, but those slower devices don't even exist yet?

In HW accelerated chips, what part of the calculations they usually accelerate? Could it be possible to repurpose old HW?

I feel like in 2030 it's more likely that we send 480p and just upscale with ai on the other end

> The biggest thing it does add though is multi-stream support

This was supported in H.264 MVC but only saw real use for 3D movies on physical BluRays. With almost no content available outside that.

That's fine and not anything new for codecs, they always take a long time before mass adoption.

Take a look at AV1 itself, you can't even say it's really ubiquitous on all hardware. It's quite well along in adoption compared to early days, but some mobile devices are still lacking hardware acceleration for it.

>........I'd say that AV2 isn't worth it.

Unless they have hardware encoder and decoder design done in parallel, otherwise it would be 2028 before a hardware block design is done and 2030 for the earliest product to ship with it. In reality I think 2031 or 2032 is more likely.

And I have been saying the same for quite some time that 20-30% for a generational codec improvement isn't worth it. I think they originally aimed at 50%, and then 40% and then 30%.

Where do you see information about the efficiency gains over AV1?

I feel like these encoders that require acceleration are a big reason why good hardware obsoletes so quickly.

> The biggest thing it does add though is multi-stream support, which will be a big win for VR and live sports.

AV1 supports it too ?

Does anyone know what is so costly to calculate in AV2?

AVIF is for sure my favorite image format right now. No other format has the quadfecta of lossless, HDR, transparency, browser support. Plus as you said, for very compressed images it looks amazing. It blows my mind how small AVIF files can be. Also, unlike HEIC and Ultra HDR JPEG, it actually supports HDR natively as part of the file format rather than doing the hacky sidecar gain map trick. I know it doesn't matter to everyone, but I just love HDR and AVIF is the only format that I feel like really takes it seriously.

Not always https://tonisagrista.com/blog/2023/jpegxl-vs-avif/

Maybe libavif will pick up AV2 support, so all one needs to do is update it to v2.0.0 or something and bam! Extra efficiency!

Honestly AVIF2 is the last thing we need now. There are way too many minority image formats already.

People have been saying this for decades now.

I've never understood why some people seem to cheer this on like a corporation owning some maths was their local sports team.

For a while I assumed some people had put in a lot of effort on H.264 encoders and so the digital sharecroppers were angry and jealous that someone might be advocating for messy freedom.

But some people seem to just enjoy the thought of corporations putting a tax on video distribution.

Luckily those greedy corporations have repeatedly shot themselves on the foot and so their influence is waning.

How long has it been since AV1 was released? About eight years, and there's still no credible patent holder. The vultures are always circling around compression standards. You shouldn't take that too seriously. Even if a lawsuit is filed, there's a legal defence fund to protect against baseless claims.

> People keep calling the AV-family codecs “royalty free,” but in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble.

And the alternative is… ?

For H.265 there are two HEVC licensing pools you have to sign with plus at least two non-pool companies:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...

Going with a non-AVx codec is no less complicated and fraught with lawsuit risk AFAICT.

> in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble

As opposed to what, like HEVC? Where you need to pay 3 different patent pools to be sure (which all has different terms), then there's still other patent holders that aren't in any pools and come and hit you with loyalty requests any time under terms however they like to?

It should be not possible to patent communication standards. The opportunity for abuse through lock-in effects is just too big.

It took 7 years for the first patent assertion claim against AV1 to go to the courts and it will probably take a while for that case to resolve. Funnily enough, it wasn't from the pool constantly putting itself in the news about it over the years. I.e. it can take quite a while before attempts are made.

Patent trolls are nasty. How long will it take for one to get the full support of those shaking the independence of the US judiciary for their own gain? Let's hope the rot stops before that.

My 10 year old iPhone 7 can play 1080p AV1 video in software for more than 200 minutes with VLC. The iPhone 7 was released a year and a half before AV1 was.

So I think it's a safe bet the current Apple TV devices are capable of playing AV1 video in software. There's a VLC release for Apple TV:

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-appletv.html

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vlc-media-player/id650377962?p...

Outside the apple ecosystem, AV1 is supported nearly everywhere.

Did you read what you shared?

It’s talking about security cameras, low-bitrate video.

FTA: "Myth Busted: At security camera bitrates (400-800 Kbps), H.265 provides negligible compression benefits. The marketing claims of "50% savings" apply only to high-bitrate content like 4K movies at 25+ Mbps, not security cameras."

It will probably depend on whether NPUs are universally available in smartphones, and whether we get a standard API for accessing NPUs. But I don't know whether AI-based codecs can have battery usage competitive with fixed-function hardware.

It was difficult to find a nice name, with av2 :(

It works in French d2vid (Deuvid)

At least it's not D4vd.

2av2quit?

daviid - or trim to davii and pronounce it "davey". But tbh I quite like dav2d.

I like it - not as punny as the first but pretty straightforward.

e2ed

Last update seems to be "lawsuit was filed" with zero updates since then. That stuff tends to move slowly.

This will always happen. There are just some entities that can't stand not seeking rent.

Dolby's patents are garbage, and they know it. They managed to patent entropy coding somehow. This will not stand to challenges, and they managed to poke a well-resourced company.

Has nothing to do with video codec.

Download the video with yt-dlp & play it in mpv you'll see it even flies on a potato.

Play the same in browser and it'll be dropping frames left and right.

I use Firefox but YouTube has recently started giving me a pop-up occasionally telling me that they are intentionally slowing down the site because they don't like some of the browser extensions I use.

Sound like a Chrome/Youtube problem. My 2012 Macbook Pro plays 1080p AV1 just fine in VLC (pretty sure Youtube works fine too in Firefox, but I didn't check whether or not it was AV1 or H264).

use the enhanced h264-ify to block the av1 stream, av1 takes a lot of cpu

Unfortunately for you, newer codecs use more CPU than older ones so AV2 would probably be even worse.

I gave up using Chrome a decade ago. It’s a power sucking pig. Safari has its own issues, but at least it’s usable. When I need something that isn’t Safari, I use Firefox.