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AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

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Re: AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

#31

Post by rollcat »

lelag wrote: post #12

I would add that broader AV1 support is also a good news for low latency application like Cloud gaming or streaming to VR headsets. HW accelerated encoding/decoding improve upon HEVC on every metrics so you can get near real-time streaming with higher quality and lower bandwidth requirements.

> improve upon HEVC on every metrics

Color me the skeptic here, but which benchmark(s) are we talking about? Even h264 vs h265 is not a settled matter - if we truly consider every possible metric, including e.g. SW encoding.

Re: AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

#32

Post by ksec »

BoumTAC wrote: post #5

Perhaps this might seem like a basic question, but why has it taken so long for processors to support AV1, given that it has been out for years?

Especially when Google and AOM promise to have a hardware encoder and decoder to be given out for free by 2018, and be implemented in many SoC by 2019, wide availability support and AV2 by 2020.

Well the basic answer is that, making an efficient hardware encoder and decoder, within power budget and die space, all while conforming to standard because you wont have much of a chance to correct it, and implementing it into the SoC design cycle which is and always has been at least three years minimum, is a lot harder than most software engineer at Google and AOM would thought.

Re: AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

#33

Post by repelsteeltje »

whynotminot wrote: post #20
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only decode, not encode. Intel ARC GPUs also do encode.

I think it makes sense for companies to start with decode though. That hits pretty much 100% of users--everyone watches video. But only a small fraction of users actually create content and need accelerated encode. And Apple especially I think is unlikely to use AV1 for their video recording, given their investment in other formats for that use-case.

> And Apple especially I think is unlikely to use AV1 for their video recording, given their investment in other formats for that use-case.

I concur. The raison d'être for AV1 is (lack of) patent license royalties. These apply to user devices as well as services. Think Google: Android as well as YouTube cost fortunes in AVC/HEVC licenses, so here AV1 makes sense.

On the other hand, Apple sells expensive hardware and has no problem ponying those licenses. Soon after adopting HEVC they doubled down with Dolby Vision which technically adds very little on top of standard HDR features already available in HEVC and AVC but present serious interop problems for device come with shiny Dolby stickers.

Re: AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

#36

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rollcat wrote: post #31
lelag wrote: post #12

I would add that broader AV1 support is also a good news for low latency application like Cloud gaming or streaming to VR headsets. HW accelerated encoding/decoding improve upon HEVC on every metrics so you can get near real-time streaming with higher quality and lower bandwidth requirements.

> improve upon HEVC on every metrics Color me the skeptic here, but which benchmark(s) are we talking about? Even h264 vs h265 is not a settled matter - if we truly consider every possible metric, including e.g. SW encoding.

For software encoding Intel suggest you can beat all the other classic SW encoders with AV1 as long as you have enough cores:

https://d1qg7561fu8ubi.cloudfront.net/blog/BD-rate_fiugure5....

Lower and to the left is "better"

Edit: resolution on that graph image is terrible but they've been sharing it for a while in slide decks so you can probably find better quality by following links from here:

https://networkbuilders.intel.com/blog/svt-av1-enables-highl...

Re: AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

#38

Post by repelsteeltje »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #17

What was the situation on its efficiency compared to H.265 and similar?

Its in the same ball park. Both do considerably better than AVC (h264), but many direct comparisons between HEVC (h265) and AV1 compare apples to oranges. Sure you can get 30% lower bitrate, but only at degraded quality levels or higher decode complexity.

Also note that HEVC had a considerable head start (5 years?) so performant encoder (or even energy efficient decoders) took a while to catch up. Recent ffmpeg versions offer a lot of options, you'll find that even a basic comparison is PhD-level difficult ;-)

Re: AV1 video codec gains broader hardware support

#40

Post by llm_nerd »

fomine3 wrote: post #29
llm_nerd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a tiny sliver of the patents in HEVC, and while we don't have the numbers I feel pretty certain they pay far more into the pool to ship HEVC in their devices than they get out of it. The same is doubly true of Qualcomm who aren't even a part of the pool. HEVC was finalized in 2013. AV1 was finalized in 2018, and has just finally started getting a robust ecosystem of software and hardware.

In context of format war, winning means that they earn patent fee from every device. I don't think it's Apple's intension, but possibly Qualcomm's.

Qualcomm isn't even a part of the HEVC alliance patent pool, so that theory doesn't hold. Indeed, the fact that Qualcomm is currently building AV1 support into their next chip (purportedly) puts them at risk of being sued because while AV1 is open, we all know how patents work and there are almost certainly actionable overlaps with the pool.

Apple ships probably more devices than anyone, and given that the patent pool is huge as mentioned odds are overwhelmingly that it costs them money to support HEVC / HEIC, not the reverse. That theory also is dubious.

Remember when everyone was yammering for VP8 support? Then it was VP9 support? Now it's AV1. Sometimes it takes a while to shake out. By all appearances AV1 is a winner, hence why it's finally getting support.

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