AOMedia AV1 Codec v1.0.0 Appears Ready For Release

[Gusar]

So can you please provide me a link to this public mailing list for HEVC and AVC. I'm not saying you're wrong just that I never saw anybody refer to the mailing list where they discussed it when referring to a particular part of a coding tool. If you say the discussion is so very very open the it should be easy, but all I could find were password protected mailing lists.

AVC was discussed on the JVT-experts mailing list. There's an archive here: https://mailman.rwth-aachen.de/mailm...fo/jvt-experts, though it's available to members only, and subscriptions need approval from a list moderator. So it's not quite as public as, say, many open source software projects.

This is what I based my words on, it's Michael Niedermayer's blog, whom you might know as the former project leader of ffmpeg (he still contributes to ffmpeg and is the release manager): https://guru.multimedia.cx/chrome-droppings/. Note the mention of a public FTP with spec drafts, meeting protocols and such, which you can find here: https://www.itu.int/wftp3/av-arch/jvt-site/

[Laser]

Right now VP9 is not a usable alternative and neither is AV1, and that's sad. By usable alternative I mean a codec that lets you encode a 5 minute video in less than a month. A tip to developers: A video encoder could use more than one core in this day and age.. I'm not going to edit a video and click render and wait half a year for my video to be ready...

What you're saying doesn't make sense. Obviously VP9 is a usable alternative, otherwise Google wouldn't use it for Youtube.

Also, you talk about codecs for AV1, but don't specify which one you're talking about - I assume you mean the reference encoder which is quite slow. But performance is not a goal for a reference encoder, but to have an implementation for the spec. It is not tuned to be quick. If you're looking for an encoder that aims for performance, look at rav1e. I don't see websites testing HEVC with the H.265 reference encoder either, so neither should you for AV1.

[andreano]

I don't understand this. I'm able to encode my video to HEVC with x265 that comes freely in the open FFmpeg as well as play it back on my HTPC with the open FFmpeg or FFdshow which are also free.

Thanks for asking, most people are really confused by this, I know.

A software license is there to give you the software author's permission to use it. Free/open software is about this license.

A patent license is what gives you the patent holders' permission.

The patent holders and software authors are seldom the same group of people.

[cl333r]

I’m pretty happy with hevc, being you know, already on the market.. Having hardware decode/encode support on all my devices.

That's not the problem with HEVC since you're the consumer, the producers/implementers/distributors of HEVC are having a hell of a time.

https://streaminglearningcenter.com/blogs/standards-failing-streaming-industry.html

[xiando]

What you're saying doesn't make sense. Obviously VP9 is a usable alternative, otherwise Google wouldn't use it for Youtube.

Also, you talk about codecs for AV1, but don't specify which one you're talking about - I assume you mean the reference encoder which is quite slow. But performance is not a goal for a reference encoder, but to have an implementation for the spec. It is not tuned to be quick. If you're looking for an encoder that aims for performance, look at rav1e. I don't see websites testing HEVC with the H.265 reference encoder either, so neither should you for AV1.

Try to convert some file to VP9 with ffmpeg and you'll see why it's not a viable alternative. Same with AV1, even rav1e. Something you'll notice if you pay attention when someone uploads something to Google's YouTune is that the video becomes available as a x264 encode first and VP9 becomes an alternative much, much later. why? because it takes forever to encode, that's why. just try to encode stuff yourself and you'll figure it out.

[vgplayer]

At NAB this year, quite a few of the vendors I spoke with that were in the compressed video over IP world mentioned they were adding support for AV1, both hardware and software. The Alliance for Open Media has big players (Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, Facebook, Google) compared to the WebM project (mostly Google)

Personally I am using VP9 and Opus for my media storage on my Plex server. Direct plays on my computer, Android phone, and Roku. I'll be making to the move to AV1 in the future.

[geearf]

Try to convert some file to VP9 with ffmpeg and you'll see why it's not a viable alternative. Same with AV1, even rav1e. Something you'll notice if you pay attention when someone uploads something to Google's YouTune is that the video becomes available as a x264 encode first and VP9 becomes an alternative much, much later. why? because it takes forever to encode, that's why. just try to encode stuff yourself and you'll figure it out.

I just tried out of curiosity, and yes indeed it took me 55 minutes for a 12 minutes 1080p VP8 movie... quite worse than x265, which should be around real time on my system.

[Grinch]

Who is paying the licenses and what about this is super closed?

The people buying devices/operating systems supporting HEVC are paying the licenses, as the cost is baked into the price you pay.

[Grinch]

Apple won't do as you suggest as they developed HEVC and it's the new default in iOS and macOS.

They will, not long after they made this LATE HEVC move, they signed up as a governing member of AOM, having resigned themselves to the reality of AV1 becoming the dominant video codec.

And where in the hell does anyone think Webm is going to make cross-platform in-roads.

Simple, first due to being royalty free, secondly because it will become the de facto standard codec across the internet, replacing h264. Every streaming giant is on board (youtube, amazon, netflix), all the hardware manufacturers are on board, all operating system vendors are on board.

HEVC is for all intents and purposes a legacy format at this point. The current and future world of video is about 'streaming', this is how 99% of people will view content, every major player is either in this market or moving there as fast as they can. HEVC has held a small niche here in 4k video, a niche that AV1 will eat together with the rest of the online video ecosystem.

It's baffling that your Apple reality distortion field still can't let you look outside of your bubble, here are some of the companies behind AV1:

Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, Intel, AMD, IBM, ARM, NVidia, Broadcom, Hulu, Realtek etc

AV1 will be the new de facto internet video standard (a position currently held by h264 and one which HEVC was never in the race for due to it's patent pool mess), and this will of course spill over to operating system video usage, eventually HEVC will get the OpenGL treatment from Apple as they state that AV1 is the default video format.

[wswartzendruber]

I find it perplexing, if not disturbing, that some here are clinging to HEVC.