A 2018 Status Update On The Royalty-Free AV1 Video Codec

[Awesomeness]

Youtube and Netflix are using it and it's supported out of the box (if not default) on all Android devices. But yeah, apart from that, no traction at all ;-)

YouTube is not using VP9 exclusively:

> youtube-dl -F "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNW0B0HsvVs"
[youtube] dNW0B0HsvVs: Downloading webpage
[youtube] dNW0B0HsvVs: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] dNW0B0HsvVs: Extracting video information
[info] Available formats for dNW0B0HsvVs:
format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   51k , opus @ 50k, 594.12KiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   67k , opus @ 70k, 784.00KiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  124k , vorbis@128k, 1.39MiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  127k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 1.57MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  132k , opus @160k, 1.53MiB
278          webm       256x144    144p   95k , webm container, vp9, 24fps, video only, 1.04MiB
160          mp4        256x144    144p  106k , avc1.4d400c, 24fps, video only, 642.25KiB
242          webm       426x240    240p  160k , vp9, 24fps, video only, 1.29MiB
133          mp4        426x240    240p  231k , avc1.4d4015, 24fps, video only, 1.23MiB
243          webm       640x360    360p  341k , vp9, 24fps, video only, 2.85MiB
134          mp4        640x360    360p  529k , avc1.4d401e, 24fps, video only, 2.66MiB
244          webm       854x480    480p  609k , vp9, 24fps, video only, 4.46MiB
135          mp4        854x480    480p 1021k , avc1.4d401e, 24fps, video only, 5.20MiB
247          webm       1280x720   720p 1154k , vp9, 24fps, video only, 6.84MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   720p 1810k , avc1.4d401f, 24fps, video only, 9.02MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 1922k , vp9, 24fps, video only, 10.33MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 2860k , avc1.640028, 24fps, video only, 13.46MiB
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2@ 24k
36           3gp        320x180    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k
18           mp4        640x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k
22           mp4        1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

[actinic]

YouTube is not using VP9 exclusively:

Yes, that's to support browsers like Safari which don't have VP9 support yet. As a consequence Safari misses out on 4K encodes by default: https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/12/youtu...ack-in-safari/

[jacob]

I understand what you're saying, and while Google and Netflix make-up most of the stream video on the web very few other sites are using vp9. Some are using vp8 but compared to h264 (which was developed in what, the early 2000?) it has not gained traction at all despite a giant like Google behind it.

Competitors of YouTube are using h264 (Vimeo, DailyMotion)
Live stream services are using h264 (Twitch, Picarto)
Independent video providers are using h264 (VRV, Kanopy, Mondo, MUBI, etc..)
Direct Content Providers are using h264 (NBC, ABC, Fox, Turner, A&E, HBO, etc..)
Government websites are using h264 (In the USA at least, which is sad...)
YouTube might server vp9 but I'm fairly certain that 99.9999% of uploaders are using h264 or carelessly uploading badly optimized mov, wav, etc...

I should have been more specific, it hasn't gain traction with the majority of "average users" or smaller non-mega giants like Google & Netflix. So everyone else

I haven't checked out DailyMotion for a while but AFAIK they do support VP9. So does Amazon, Bitmovin, Brightcove and others. I don't know about Vimeo.

I get your point about home users and small companies but remember that in 99.999% they couldn't care less and use whatever comes by default on their devices, which until recently meant only h264 (among others because these users don't renew their hardware every 6 months). By this logic, all codecs since then have therefore also failed to gain traction, in particular including x265/HEVC. I'm not saying that it's the case, I'm using the example to illustrate that in my opinion this argument is not very relevant. It is IMHO doubly not relevant since phone, camera etc. manufacturers will implement whichever hardware encoder will provide best compatibility with the main online sharing services (e.g. Youtube). Thus if Youtube goes AV1 (and they will), then AV1 it will be, even for Joe Random Guy.

I don't necessarily have a favourite here and don't own shares in any of the involved parties. Sure I only wish the most painful and gruesome corporate death to the MPEG-LA patent trolls, but Google, Microsoft and Cisco are not exactly deserving of much fandom either. But the fact remains that a codec that is used by default on YouTube, Netflix and a couple of other video streaming services and as such may well account for over 50% of all video transmitted over the Internet can hardly be considered a failure in my opinion.

[jacob]

YouTube is not using VP9 exclusively:

Not sure what your point is. No major application or website will ever support any single codec exclusively. Not VP9, not AVC, not HEVC and almost certainly not AV1 either. Youtube videos currently play in VP9 by default in Chrome and Firefox (I haven't tried other browsers), what else is needed in your books?

[Mr. Octus]

...I haven't checked out DailyMotion for a while but AFAIK they do support VP9. So does Amazon, Bitmovin, Brightcove and others. I don't know about Vimeo.

I checked Dailymotion & vimeo in case things have changed but streaming a few videos seems to still serve mp4s. I can't say anything about Bitmovin, Brighcove but the past ~7 shows I've streamed on Amazon Prime were all mp4/h264 as well. I just might not be getting them yet :/

But it does indeed seems that AWS transcoder has vp9. So Amazon can offers if they want... Maybe they are holding out for AV1 as well for their main video library. Re-encoding their entire archive would be crazy. Netflix did the same and Imagine they are still working on it.

...But the fact remains that a codec that is used by default on YouTube, Netflix and a couple of other video streaming services and as such may well account for over 50% of all video transmitted over the Internet can hardly be considered a failure in my opinion.

I agree with you that it's definitely not a failure and I'm happy to have vp9 in important places. I can watch nearly all of YouTube on a brand new vanilla system like Fedora that doesn't have h264 by default, wooh! It just hasn't had the massive reach that h264 has, but... to be fair h264 has had a muuuuuch longer time to spread it's roots and improve the encoder.

Having a common, well design, FLOSS video codec that can do near visually lossless quality while still being compress and doesn't take 1.5x~2.5x that amount of time to the length of the video to encode will be very nice. That's what I was hoping for in vp9 and it fell a bit short. I hope AV1 can be everything I want.

Also sorry If I came off negative, I wasn't intending to insulting or anything about being a royalty supporting codec fanboy or something. Didn't explain my point well.

[Mr. Octus]

YouTube is not using VP9 exclusively:

YouTube has both for legacy reasons and old browsers but I see them stream vp9 more often then not.

[jacob]

I agree with you that it's definitely not a failure and I'm happy to have vp9 in important places. I can watch nearly all of YouTube on a brand new vanilla system like Fedora that doesn't have h264 by default, wooh! It just hasn't had the massive reach that h264 has, but... to be fair h264 has had a muuuuuch longer time to spread it's roots and improve the encoder.

I think the main factor is that h264 arrived at a time when HD video was just starting to take off and there was no meaningful competition in sight for many years. That, plus comparatively less outrageous licensing terms and the fact that it got selected for BluRay ensured a form of dominance that no-one will probably be able to replicate in the foreseeable future. Even today, with HEVC and VP9 available and AV1 just around the corner, it still has its advantages as it can easily record video in real time even without HW acceleration, and it can provide better video quality than more advanced codecs on low-powered CPUs. But then, there are still people out there who happily use Xvid ;-)

Having a common, well design, FLOSS video codec that can do near visually lossless quality while still being compress and doesn't take 1.5x~2.5x that amount of time to the length of the video to encode will be very nice. That's what I was hoping for in vp9 and it fell a bit short. I hope AV1 can be everything I want.

Personally my main grief against VP9 is the extremely long encoding times. If AV1 releases a truly FLOSS implementation, can encode faster and produce smaller files while maintaining the same video quality, I wouldn't be looking elsewhere for sure.

Also sorry If I came off negative, I wasn't intending to insulting or anything about being a royalty supporting codec fanboy or something. Didn't explain my point well.

No problem at all. BTW consider yourself lucky if your gov't websites at least use h264. In Europe, there are some that still force you to install Flash :-/

[quikee]

That doesn't answer the question. Daala is significantly different from AV1 overall, to be worth continuing developing it on its own. But Mozilla hit some technical roadblock they didn't manage to solve at that moment. Now looks like active development has stopped.

Daala wasn't fully merged into AV1, only some parts of it. Its core idea of using lapped transforms was not for instance.

AFAIK They want to continue development at one point as an experimental codec after AV1 is frozen (and optimised). Compared to AV1 and HEVC, Daala is much simpler and even incomplete it already reached HEVC quality levels. Currently however, AV1 is priority.

[lu_tze]

YouTube is not using VP9 exclusively:

Check some video, that has 4k resolution available.

If you want 4k, you are getting VP9 only.

[cl333r]

The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time.