AV1 is supposed to make streaming better, so why isn’t everyone using it?
1 min read
Summary
Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a coalition of tech firms including Meta, Amazon and Google, developed the video compression codec AV1 in 2015, which is claimed to be around 30% more efficient than its rivals, enabling higher-quality streaming at lower bandwidths.
Described as royalty-free, AV1 has gained support from major streaming services including Netflix and YouTube, as well as being implemented in phones and TVs.
However, AV1’s efficiency comes at the cost of increased encoding and decoding complexity, requiring compatible hardware or resource-intensive software, which has slowed uptake.
This article explores the challenges of AV1 uptake and the possible emergence of rival codecs.