AV1 Video Encoding – Open Source Video Codec

We have made some changes to the video encoding process for MYETV:

  • The video codec used has been changed, from the old h264 to the new AV1 (AOMedia Video 1)
  • Where av1 codec is not available yet (in browsers), vp9 codec will be used instead (max. resolution 1080p)
  • The conversion queue has been introduced, for greater security of our infrastructures the conversion of the video file will not be immediate but the conversion queue will check the availability of the CPU/GPU every 5 minutes to start a new conversion process (they will not be able to be more than a per-cpu conversion process); pending conversion, the video content- [Contents: every content intended as text, images, audio or video] - will not be usable by the public.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 that includes semiconductor firms, video on demand providers, video content producers, software- [Program/Software: the instructions that control what a computer does; computer programs] - development companies and web browser vendors. The AV1 bitstream specification includes a reference video codec. In 2018 general testing shows that the AV1 reference encoder achieved 34%, 46.2% and 50.3% higher data compression than libvpx-vp9, x264 High profile, and x264 Main profile respectively.

Like VP9, but unlike H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC), AV1 has a royalty-free licensing model that does not hinder adoption in open-source projects.

There are many reasons that led us to choose this video encoding in 2023; one of many is the portability of licenses: completely open source; then there’s the fact that support is expanding rapidly across many browsers and devices; furthermore, the conversion allows us to save 50% of space and bitrate compared with the previous codec even on resolutions up to 4k and 8k. This new codec is the future.

Works on the implementation of this codecs has already begun; the new av1 codec is already in circulation on the MYETV platform- [Platform: the set of the main domain and all the subdomain of a particular website; also the computer architecture and equipment using a particular operating system] - and the next videos will be encoded in av1 codec with .mp4 format, while the vp9 codec in .webm format will be used for all those situations in which the new codec is not yet available (some browsers or operating systems do not yet support the av1 decoder).
For more information on the availability of the av1 decoder on internet browsers, read here: https://caniuse.com/av1
For more information on the availability of the vp9 codec on internet browsers, read here: https://caniuse.com/webm
When the av1 codec will be available on the majority of the browsers, than the vp9 codec will be abandoned to save space.

Thanks for reading this, official documents about the encoding process will be updated with these informations and updates.

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