Libaom, SVT-AV1 Mark New Open-Source AV1 Encoder Releases This Week

[linuxgeex]

ffmpeg 4.4 PPA was just released hours ago via https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/ffmpeg4
Along with FastFlix 4.2.0, the amazing GUI for AOM AV1 and vaapi-h265 encoding, HandBrake is now deprecated.

Fastflix is actually pretty good. Wishlist: a few more filter options, tiles>0 with pass 1 for libaom-av1 (more cores = much faster pass 1 and it doesn't impact quality), and MAIN10/Professional profile. And I guess pre-populating the colourspace inputs from the ffprobe data would be nice too. And it would be nice if you could specify a wildcard for the input so it would glob files to the queue. :-)

[sophisticles]

ffmpeg 4.4 PPA was just released hours ago via https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/ffmpeg4
Along with FastFlix 4.2.0, the amazing GUI for AOM AV1 and vaapi-h265 encoding, HandBrake is now deprecated.

I wouldn't say HandBrake is deprecated., it's still a better GUI than FastFlix and FF does not support vaapi-h265 encoding, it supports Nvenc, not the same thing.

[jacob]

It's funny how Handbrake devs are still refusing to include SVT-AV1 because "it's slow". But it is as fast as divx/xvid used to be on P3/P4 computers back in the days. Actually faster. No one complained back then.

Only a few years ago VP9 and HEVC were equally slow and they were included. There might be a point though in the sense that VP9 and HEVC are more than good enough for 99.9999% of home users' current use cases (the target audience of HandBrake) so they don't really need to support AV1 just yet.

[Azrael5]

The current generation so 3000 for NVidia and 6000 for AMD have decode already. I expect that is just 4:2:0 as well but maybe Brigman can enlighten us as to what AMD is doing in RDNA2 as all I have ever seen in the marketing material is "AV1 Decode". I am hoping Van Gough is going to be my next HTPC as it is supposed to be a low power chip aimed at chrome pads but with AV1 decode up to 4K. If some one throws that into a mini PC form factor I'm in.

BTW I tried launching FastFlix on FC-34 and it doesn't work.

I consider AV1 video codification a sort of revolution because it allows modern hardware to replace h265 codec in a better and more convenient shape.

[MadeUpName]

What about video decode?

The current generation so 3000 for NVidia and 6000 for AMD have decode already. I expect that is just 4:2:0 as well but maybe Brigman can enlighten us as to what AMD is doing in RDNA2 as all I have ever seen in the marketing material is "AV1 Decode". I am hoping Van Gough is going to be my next HTPC as it is supposed to be a low power chip aimed at chrome pads but with AV1 decode up to 4K. If some one throws that into a mini PC form factor I'm in.

BTW I tried launching FastFlix on FC-34 and it doesn't work.

[Azrael5]

On the GPU side every ones next gen cards will have AV1 encode but it will be limited to 4:2:0. It is aimed mostly at the video conferencing applications. I think Intel may already have some thing out with that supports it and I think M1 also has it.

What about video decode?

[wswartzendruber]

Can either encoder reliably handle grain yet?

[MadeUpName]

Is AV1 processed by AVX instruction set? What about GPUs?

On the GPU side every ones next gen cards will have AV1 encode but it will be limited to 4:2:0. It is aimed mostly at the video conferencing applications. I think Intel may already have some thing out with that supports it and I think M1 also has it.

[skeevy420]

First time I've heard about FastFlix, and it's already at v4.2.0; nice to see a new attempt at making something better than that Handbrake crap. Unfortunately, AFAICT the release bundles are not very Linux friendly, as they contain either a single binary blob that you need to make executable and run it a la AppImage, or a bunch of somewhat undocumented source files that are supposed to run self-contained.

Reading the README I can deduce that if it were to be made into a proper package its only non-Python dependency would probably be Ffmpeg, but I can't really be certain. Also, for curiosity's sake, I'm not even sure if that AppImage-like blob already contains the ffmpeg binary or not, not to mention that on my Arch system it won't even run (probably due to some dependency being the wrong version or something). Some more documentation would be most welcome.



Daaaaamn. Are we already at the point where a 6c12t CPU is considered slow tech? Time sure flies.

Thank AMD for releasing 16+core systems for so cheap.

To still have a somewhat responsive desktop you'll have to limit a 6c12t system to 4c8t for video encoding since a person will want 2c4t to keep the desktop and other programs happy and responsive. A lower core count desktop has to make certain compromises for tasks that can use more threads than are available; 6c12t is on the border straddling low to just good enough for high level video encoding while multitasking. While multitasking is the key phrase.

[NateHubbard]

Daaaaamn. Are we already at the point where a 6c12t CPU is considered slow tech? Time sure flies.

Well, I had a 6 core Phenom II at work over a decade ago, so it kind of makes sense. Especially with the 12 core Ryzens being 105W desktop chips.