AV1
Also known as: libaom-av1, SVT-AV1, AVIF, AOM AV1, dav1d
AV1 is a next-generation video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media (Google, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Mozilla, and others).
It compresses video 30-50% better than H.265 with no royalty fees. AV1 is now used by YouTube, Netflix, and Twitch for compatible devices, and is the future of video streaming.
AV1, explained at three levels
At home
AV1 is a newer video format that makes video files smaller without losing quality. When YouTube plays a video in your browser, it might be using AV1 without you knowing -- same picture quality, less data downloaded. It's the successor to H.265 but free for anyone to use.
At work
Streaming companies adopt AV1 to reduce bandwidth costs -- more efficient video means less data delivered per viewer, which scales to significant savings at millions of streams. No royalty fees make it economically attractive compared to H.265.
At home
AV1 uses several advanced coding tools absent in HEVC: intra block copy (for screen content), film grain synthesis (instead of encoding noisy frames), larger superblocks (128x128), overlapped block motion compensation, and constrained directional enhancement filtering. These innovations contribute to 30-50% bitrate reduction over H.265 at similar visual quality.
At work
AV1 encoding is significantly slower than H.265 -- software encoding can be 10-50x slower than real-time even with libaom-av1 at fast presets. SVT-AV1 (Intel/Netflix's scalable AV1 encoder) achieves near-real-time encoding. Hardware encoders (Intel ARC, NVIDIA RTX 4000, AMD RX 7000) enable practical AV1 encoding in video production workflows.
At home
AV1's bitstream is more complex than HEVC, supporting 128x128 superblocks, 67 intra prediction modes, compound prediction (blending two reference frames), and loop restoration filters. The codec is designed for extreme parallelism -- both software and hardware decoders can exploit multi-core and SIMD instructions. AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) uses AV1 compression for still images, competing with WebP and HEIC.
At work
AV1 streaming deployment uses Media Source Extensions (MSE) and DASH/HLS manifests with separate AV1 and H.264 representations. ABR (Adaptive Bitrate) streaming players switch between codecs based on device capability detection. ISOBMFF (ISO Base Media File Format, used in .mp4 and .webm containers) supports AV1 via the av01 codec tag. The Codec Working Group within AOM is developing AV2 for the next generation.
Real-world examples
At home
Nadia notices her laptop fan spins faster when watching YouTube at 4K. Chrome is using AV1, which requires software decoding on her older CPU without AV1 hardware decode. On her newer laptop with Intel 12th gen (AV1 hardware decode), the same video plays silently.
At work
Thomas's streaming platform serves AV1 to Chrome and Android users (via codec detection in the browser's Accept header), falling back to H.264 for Safari and older devices. AV1 delivery cut their CDN bandwidth bill by 35% for compatible users.
Common confusions
- AV1 is only for big tech companies — AV1 is royalty-free and open-source. Any developer or company can encode, decode, and distribute AV1 content. Ffmpeg includes SVT-AV1 encoding. The free encoder libaom-av1 is available to anyone.
- AV1 is ready to replace H.264 everywhere — AV1 requires hardware decoder support for smooth playback, which older devices lack. H.264 remains the universal fallback. Platforms use AV1 for compatible users while maintaining H.264 for broad support -- AV1 doesn't replace H.264 yet.
For analysts
AV1 adoption is a relevant factor in media and streaming cost analyses. For platforms with significant Chrome or Android audiences, AV1 encoding can generate measurable CDN cost savings, but requires investment in transcoding infrastructure.
History & origin
AV1 was released by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) in 2018 after several years of development, merging and improving technology from Google's VP10, Mozilla's Daala, and Cisco's Thor projects. AOM was formed in 2015 specifically to create an open alternative to HEVC's complex licensing. AV1 achieved 30% better compression than HEVC in independent tests. Hardware decoder support arrived in 2020 (NVIDIA RTX 3000, Intel Xe, AMD RDNA2), enabling practical playback. YouTube started serving AV1 by default for Chrome in 2020.