A few things - this is one step in a long, LONG path. AV2 is currently unusable in its current state (the encoder typically runs at around 1fps on good hardware), and likely will remain so til ~2028 when the first av2 hardware accelerated chips start dropping. Even then, I wouldn't expect AV2 streams to be common til 2030.<p>IMO, if it were just the efficiency gains on the table (which are substantial - ~20-30% over AV1), I'd say that AV2 isn't worth it. The biggest thing it does add though is multi-stream support, which will be a big win for VR and live sports. The other fun thing is you can send an alpha channel as a separate stream, which the file will then composite for proper transparent video support.
Based on AV1's trajectory, hardware encode isn't necessary (though it is nice). The current encoder is a reference encoder. Now that the spec is finalized, expect significant speed improvements from production encoders (realtime likely won't happen until we get it in hardware though)
The way things are going, we can pretty much forget about AV2 hardware encoders in PCs anytime soon. All the newest, best chip capacity is being completely hogged by Apple and AI companies.<p>Unless chipmakers port the AV2 design to older, cheaper nodes, it’s just not happening for average users. We’ll probably see some Chinese TV chip makers throw in an AV2 decoder just to check a box, but as an actual encoder? I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.
In HW accelerated chips, what part of the calculations they usually accelerate? Could it be possible to repurpose old HW?
I feel like in 2030 it's more likely that we send 480p and just upscale with ai on the other end
That's fine and not anything new for codecs, they always take a long time before mass adoption.<p>Take a look at AV1 itself, you can't even say it's really ubiquitous on all hardware. It's quite well along in adoption compared to early days, but some mobile devices are still lacking hardware acceleration for it.
Where do you see information about the efficiency gains over AV1?
Does anyone know what is so costly to calculate in AV2?
And how long will it take before someone implements this standard and gets sued because Adobe or Dolby or whoever wanted to get slapped down? My knowledge may be out of date but if this is as "open" as AV1, I'm very skeptical that the individual companies will actually allow that. Greed and all that.
It took 7 years for the first patent assertion claim against AV1 to go to the courts and it will probably take a while for that case to resolve. Funnily enough, it wasn't from the pool constantly putting itself in the news about it over the years. I.e. it can take quite a while before attempts are made.
Looking forward to a decently speedy encoder coming around. The reference one for AV1 is really not that great, and the same is true here. But as soon as we get SVT-AV2 or whatever, I'll be a very happy camper.
What I'm interested in is seeing how this will improve the AVIF image format. AVIF stomps the competition for low-bitrate still images (where chroma subsampling is used). For lossless images, not so much. Lossless JPEG XL and lossless WEBP make lossless AVIF look like a joke.
AVIF is for sure my favorite image format right now. No other format has the quadfecta of lossless, HDR, transparency, browser support. Plus as you said, for very compressed images it looks amazing. It blows my mind how small AVIF files can be. Also, unlike HEIC and Ultra HDR JPEG, it actually supports HDR natively as part of the file format rather than doing the hacky sidecar gain map trick. I know it doesn't matter to everyone, but I just love HDR and AVIF is the only format that I feel like really takes it seriously.
Honestly AVIF2 is the last thing we need now. There are way too many minority image formats already.
There aren’t _that_ many. HEIF has been an unusually large pain in the ass just because it’s both patent encumbered and incredibly popular since the iPhone and many cameras use it.<p>JPEG is woefully outdated with the lack of HDR and modern compression, HEIF can’t be used without paying a license, webp was designed just for extremely efficient small images rather than local storage, avif I’ve never seen used ever, and JPEG XL is on track to be the next major format.<p>I agree we don’t need an avif2, but until jpeg xl there really weren’t any decent alternatives for jpeg.
Mostly a joke... I've been waiting for the AV1 Apple TV, so now I'm just waiting for AV2 support as Apple TV as well now.
My 10 year old iPhone 7 can play 1080p AV1 video in software for more than 200 minutes with VLC. The iPhone 7 was released a year and a half before AV1 was.<p>So I think it's a safe bet the current Apple TV devices are capable of playing AV1 video in software. There's a VLC release for Apple TV:<p><a href="https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-appletv.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-appletv.html</a><p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vlc-media-player/id650377962?platform=tv">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vlc-media-player/id650377962?p...</a>
Not especially relevant, as the obvious use of AV1 on the AppleTV is streaming, and the OS frameworks don't request AV1 without hardware decoding. Services which provide their own video decoding (are there any?) don't seem interested providing their own software decoder for the ATV, despite the bandwidth savings.
Apple A17 Pro / A18 include AV1 hardware decode.
Outside the apple ecosystem, AV1 is supported nearly everywhere.
AV1 is being actively claim-charted by a lot of companies right now, and lawsuits are almost certainly coming. The same process is already starting for AV2, but most players are waiting for the AV1 cases to mature first.<p>People keep calling the AV-family codecs “royalty free,” but in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble.
People have been saying this for decades now.<p>I've never understood why some people seem to cheer this on like a corporation owning some maths was their local sports team.<p>For a while I assumed some people had put in a lot of effort on H.264 encoders and so the digital sharecroppers were angry and jealous that someone might be advocating for messy freedom.<p>But some people seem to just enjoy the thought of corporations putting a tax on video distribution.<p>Luckily those greedy corporations have repeatedly shot themselves on the foot and so their influence is waning.
How long has it been since AV1 was released? About eight years, and there's still no credible patent holder. The vultures are always circling around compression standards. You shouldn't take that too seriously. Even if a lawsuit is filed, there's a legal defence fund to protect against baseless claims.
It takes a few years for vendors to support hardware decoding for a new standard, so we won't see it in widespread use anytime soon.
Dav2d doesn't have the same nice ring to it. I hope there's someone with a decent repo-name punning skill who'll contribute before that.<p>avi2ude? av2go?
It was difficult to find a nice name, with av2 :(<p>It works in French d2vid (Deuvid)
At least it's not D4vd.
I like it - not as punny as the first but pretty straightforward.
2av2quit?
Congrats!<p>How is the case of fighting off Dolby's patent racketeering going? They tried to attack Snapchat for using AV1.
Last update seems to be "lawsuit was filed" with zero updates since then. That stuff tends to move slowly.
This will always happen. There are just some entities that can't stand not seeking rent.
It may always happen but it would happen less if we updated patent laws to fine people who filed invalid patents or enforced some kind of similar punishment. If you file a patent, it's up to you to verify that your patent is actually valid, and the courts shouldn't have to do that legwork for you. It also doesn't help that the patent office/components of governments don't review patents as thoroughly as they used to. Same with trademarks.
I generally don't like the current patent law but it sounds a bit off to pay the government & wait for them to review your patent claim and then get fined by the government when both of you were wrong about it. There are already processes to additionally fine a company bringing about a truly frivolous patent lawsuit, it's just rare because usually it's not so cut and dry as we'd like it to be.
I mean my idea isn't the only one in that solution space. My reasoning was to ensure that the government actually reviewed the patent and ensured it was valid instead of rubber stamping it. Or, even better, the filer of the patent application would do that. Although the best is probably to make software unpatentable anyway.
Why patents is a problem, please explain. If you build something that has been patented, then, well, you pay the per piece fee on it.
> In the 1980s, when IBM accused Sun of violating seven patents, Sun examined the patents and argued that IBM didn't have a case. The reply of IBM's lawyers was "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" And Sun paid out.[4]
Even better, software patents should not be allowed in the first place.
I’m curious how much AV2 will actually help older hardware in practice.<p>I’m on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro: 2.6 GHz 6-core i7, 64 GB RAM. The machine is still more than powerful enough for normal desktop work and software dev, but YouTube in Chrome has become borderline unusable for me. My internet is fine, Safari plays the same videos smoothly, and YouTube “Stats for nerds” shows plenty of buffer but the decoding makes youtube unusable in chrome for me.
I use Firefox but YouTube has recently started giving me a pop-up occasionally telling me that they are intentionally slowing down the site because they don't like some of the browser extensions I use.
I gave up using Chrome a decade ago. It’s a power sucking pig. Safari has its own issues, but at least it’s usable. When I need something that isn’t Safari, I use Firefox.
Sound like a Chrome/Youtube problem. My 2012 Macbook Pro plays 1080p AV1 just fine in VLC (pretty sure Youtube works fine too in Firefox, but I didn't check whether or not it was AV1 or H264).
For reference: dav1d 0.5 can decode 143 FPS of a 1080p 8-bit video on a third gen core i7.[1] I doubt there's been much in the way of regressions since then. 10-bit and 4k is obviously a lot more heavy, but not really relevant to older devices.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.phoronix.com/news/dav1d-0.5" rel="nofollow">https://www.phoronix.com/news/dav1d-0.5</a> (it's mislabled as a core i3, but the 3770K is a core i7).
Unfortunately for you, newer codecs use more CPU than older ones so AV2 would probably be even worse.
use the enhanced h264-ify to block the av1 stream, av1 takes a lot of cpu