SVT-AV1 1.8 Brings More Performance Improvements Plus ARM Neon SIMD Optimizations

SVT-AV1 v1.8 was released this week as the newest version of this open-source AV1 video encoder originally started by Intel and continues to be developed by Intel engineers in cooperation with the Alliance for Open Media. As with most releases, optimizing this CPU-based AV1 encoder's performance continues to be a key priority.

SVT-AV1 1.8 brings more speed-ups at various preset levels -- especially M0 to M6 where there can be gains as much as 53%. Plus there are a variety of other optimizations in the single digit percentage space.

The other big piece of SVT-AV1 1.8 is finally adding Arm Neon SIMD optimizations for most important kernels. Finally having ARM Neon support means speed-ups in the range of 4.5x to 8x compared to the common C code.

- Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets:
- Speedup CRF presets M6 to M0 by 17-53% while maintaining similar quality levels
- Re-adjust CRF presets M7 to M13 for better quality with BD-rate gains ranging from 1-4%
- Improve the quality and speed of the 1-pass VBR mode
- Improve Multi Pass VBR algorithm for better quality with BD-rate gains of ~3% on average
- Add API allowing to update bitrate / CRF and Key_frame placement during the encoding session for CBR lowdelay mode and CRF Random Access mode
- ARM Neon SIMD optimizations for most critical kernels allowing for a 4.5-8x fps speedup vs the c implementation

Downloads of SVT-AV1 1.8 are available via GitLab. New SVT-AV1 benchmarks coming soon on Phoronix.