What Is the AV1 Video Codec and What Is It Used For?
Codecs play a crucial role in content delivery on the internet. After all, it is due to these codecs that the Terabytes of RAW footage coming out of your camera can be compressed to Gigabytes—enabling us to watch high-resolution footage on the internet.
That said, to make this compression more efficient new codecs keep entering the market, and the AV1 codec is a prime example of the ever-changing codec ecosystem. This brings up the question of what is the AV1 codec and what it is used for.
What Is a Video Codec, and Why Is It Needed?
Before getting into AV1, it is important to understand video codecs and why they are needed in the first place. You see, the file size of the videos you shoot is very large when uncompressed, and this file size only rises as the quality of the video increases.
To put things into perspective, a two-hour-long movie in 4K would hog over 1.7 terabytes of storage when uncompressed. This number clearly shows that videos of such size can’t be uploaded to the internet, given its limited bandwidth. To solve this problem, we have video codecs.
Put simply, a video codec is a specialized algorithm that looks at each frame of a video and works to reduce its size by exploiting the nuances of the human eye. Due to the use of these algorithms, the size of the videos comes down without compromising on the quality—enabling users to stream high-quality video on the internet.
That said, different compression algorithms are available on the internet, and each one offers different efficiencies when reducing video size. AV1 builds on older codecs such as HEVC and VP9 and is the newest codec in town.
What Is the AV1 Video Codec?
Developed by Alliance for Open Media, a non-profit organization, AV1 is a non-licensable video codec. Due to this, the codec can be used by anyone without paying royalties to the developers. Founded by Intel, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and other technology giants, the Alliance of Open Media released AV1 in 2018.
The main goal of the AV1 codec is to reduce file size after compression without affecting quality. This reduction was needed as the display resolution of the content we stream keeps increasing. For example, back in the day, DVDs came with content with a resolution of 480p, and the same could becompressed using MPEG-2,but withBlue Ray, the compression standard had to improveas the resolution was bumped up to 1080p.
Evolving video quality demand is what led to the development of h.254 (AVC). With 4K and 8k coming into the picture, new compression standards like AV1 were needed.
The main goal of the AV1 codec is to reduce the video’s bitrate while maintaining the quality. Due to this, higher quality videos can be uploaded to the internet without degradation in the quality. In terms of numbers, AV1 offers 30 percent better compression at the same bitrates compared to HEVC. This increased compression efficiency enables smoother playback on lower bandwidths for both high and low resolutions.
In addition to these improvements in compression, AV1 is designed with hardware in mind. This approach improves the encoding process when hardware with special AV1 encoding and decoding units is used. To name a few, new SoCs and GPUs like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Samsung Exynos 2200, MediaTek Dimensity 1000 5G, Google Tensor G2, Nvidia’s RTX 4000-Series, and Intel Xe and Arc GPUs support accelerated hardware decoding for the AV1 codec.
As AV1 improves compression efficiency in encoding videos, it is used by every technological giant when it comes to distributing videos. For one, Meta uses AV1 for streaming reels and videos on Instagram and Facebook, and it reported efficiencies of up to 30 percent while using the codec.
In addition, both Google andNetflix use AV1 to transmit videosin applications like YouTube and Google Duo to offer better quality on low bandwidth connections.
Not only this, but the streaming community can also benefit from AV1 if they have dedicated hardware that supports it. Not only will the codec help deliver better quality while streaming, but they also offer higher gaming FPS as the GPU is not interrupted for processing the streaming output due to the availability of the dedicated hardware.
Creators shooting high-quality footage could also reap the benefits of AV1 as it would reduce uploading times while delivering better quality to their audience. Improving both productivity and customer satisfaction.
Is AV1 the Codec of the Future?
AV1 is the name of the game when it comes to video compression efficiency. That said, this increased efficiency comes at the cost of high encoding time and lack of compatibility, both of which are bound to improve in the future. It shows that AV1 could be the future of codecs, but older codecs like VP9, H.254, and H.256 have their merits as they offer better compatibility and lower encoding time on current hardware.
Different video codecs deliver different compression rates and video quality. But which should you be using?
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