So, after some (long) waiting time, the powers to be (including Xiph and also Google, Intel, etc.) finally released the AV1 bitstream.
https://aomedia.org/the-alliance-for-open-media-kickstarts-video-innovation-era-with-av1-release/
Since RTP and Matroska already support it (WebM too, but they're preparing a follow-up container), and since there's lots of hardware and software manufacturers in the AOM, adoption should be pretty swift.
Spec: https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-spec/
I can't wait for some video ABX-ing results!
The thread below this one is a couple years old and full of people predicting that VP8 wouldn't go anywhere. How times change!
Amazing what 100kbps can provide for video encoding now a days. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/11/dash-playback-of-av1-video/
This is awesome news.
In the AOMEDIA list I see Amazon so that means Twitch will probably support AV1 soon. ARM means future mobile chips will have hardware support. Facebook has a lot of video on it too. and Google has Youtube obviously as well as Chromecast (does that re-encode?). Intel/AMD/Nvidia will at the very least have driver support and later hardware acceleration. Chromium (Chrome/Vivaldi/Opera/etc) and Blink (Firefox/etc) will support it. Microsoft (Windows/Edge) will support it. And VideoLan (VLC) and thus libacvodec (ffmpeg) will support it.
I'm hoping to see really fast track adoption of this. Nothing against VP9 and H.264/H.265, they served their purpose, and I hope to see them relegated to backwards compatibility use in the near future. I'm also hoping to see Opus get wider adoption with this too. (AV1 + Opus makes a great combo).
Of course there are tones of improvements in AV1 comparing to VP9 and HEVC.
But personally for me native 10-12 bits support is one of the most important things in AV1.
It's not uncommon to see a good HEVC encode at relatively high bitrate which is ruined by banding and blocking in dark areas due to 8 bit rounding. Yes, HEVC/VP9 support 10/12 bits but different hardware support different bit depths.
2018 is a good time for AV1 because MPEG HEVC successor (H.266) will be ready in ~2020.
And of course good news for Opus as it will be used as an audio codec for AV1 videos. :)
BTW Microsoft now supports Opus ( I just checked Youtube videos in Edge browser and it says audio is Opus).
Apple probably won't support it, because they're firmly dipped in the HEVC pool. They do support Opus, but only in CAF containers, nothing Ogg is supported.
Apple joined AOMedia in January:
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-online-video-compression-av1/
Oh? Then I guess maybe it's in their future after all. Just no telling when, and for which devices, going how far back in time. They already had limited hardware support for HEVC.
Chromium (Chrome/Vivaldi/Opera/etc) and Blink (Firefox/etc) will support it.
Do you mean Blink and Gecko?
https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/av1/demo1.shtml
https://code.facebook.com/posts/253852078523394/av1-beats-x264-and-libvpx-vp9-in-practical-use-case/
I just luv the fact that encoding time is 'only' 10000x higher than x.264 (And I thought vp9 was boring)
https://scontent.flju1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/30179634_213060259453407_4307818495279628288_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=ad2abbb337b2ad7ba24c0ba31e844531&oe=5B6104C7
I just luv the fact that encoding time is 'only' 10000x higher than x.264 (And I thought vp9 was boring)
https://scontent.flju1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/30179634_213060259453407_4307818495279628288_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=ad2abbb337b2ad7ba24c0ba31e844531&oe=5B6104C7
That's normal for a reference encoder. Final goal is about 3-5x slower iirc.
That's normal for a reference encoder. Final goal is about 3-5x slower iirc.
And as the hardware gets better and the algorithms to do the encoding get better then it can only get quicker :)
Hope to see programs like Handbrake soon to support this new format.
Meanwhile in ffmpeg: a commit from 16 Apr 2018:
avformat/movenc: forbid muxing AV1 streams until the spec is finished.
This prevents creating potentially broken files, as both the AV1 and
the AV1 in ISOMBFF specs are unfinished.
There's a huge red banner warning that the specs are a draft on the specs site too.
Chromium (Chrome/Vivaldi/Opera/etc) and Blink (Firefox/etc) will support it.
Do you mean Blink and Gecko?
Yeah I did, thanks. (can't edit my post so I guess I'll have to live with the shame of mixing those engine names up).
Why even release if they're not even done with it yet?
Why even release if they're not even done with it yet?
It was more of a press release than the codec being finished. The engineers keep changing the spec... but someone must have decided they wanted it ready for NAB last week.
https://www.nabshow.com/
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/NAB-2018-The-Alliance-for-Open-Media-Talks-AV1-Launch-124401.aspx
Why even release if they're not even done with it yet?
I think the idea is that work on hardware decoders can begin (they won't add any new codec features), although the precise bitstream may change if needed.
Well, the document is authored by Argon Design Ltd, http://www.argondesign.com/about/ , they are in the hardware design business it seems. Unfortunately, they just say "might change significantly" on the spec page, and not really where things might change, and where things are likely to stay as they are.
Apple joined AOMedia in January:
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-online-video-compression-av1/
The article claims:
"Apple quietly joined the Alliance for Open Media as a founding member."
How can you join something as a founding member after the the organization has been in existence for some time? Can you become a founder retroactively?
AV1 1.0.0 8)
https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1845329#post1845329
Can't wait for a usable handbrake like tool to create a video.
Tried the Staxrip but with little success. I cannot set (or don't know how to) set a range so I can encode just a few seconds of video to test it's capabilities.
Can't wait for a usable handbrake like tool to create a video.
Can't wait NUC with AV1 hw decoding support.