In Broadcast - March 2018 - 34

34

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 8 - Issue 3 | March 2018

InForm

Will AV1 Take The Codec
Crown From MPEG?
Bitmovin Co-Founder and CEO Stefan Lederer, considers the inherent merits
of the AV1 Codec...

A

V1 is a hot topic and the upcoming
code freeze will enable companies
to start incorporating the new codec
into their products. Early adopters
YouTube and Netflix are expected to be
the first to use the new standard as part
of their delivery, while implementation
in browsers will help it rapidly reach
critical mass. The first integration
within a browser - Firefox Nightly - was
already showcased by us at the end
of 2017 and confirmed the new open
source innovation can easily integrate
with existing software solutions. Ahead
of the codec's upcoming code freeze,
let's rewind and look at where we stand
in regards to AV1.
The Genesis Behind AV1
In September 2015, the Alliance for
Open Media (AOMedia) was founded
by leading companies from various
industries with an association to media
technology. Among them are browser
vendors like Google, Mozilla and
Microsoft, hardware vendors including
AMD, ARM, Intel, and NVIDIA, and
content providers such as Amazon and
Netflix.
The goal of AOMedia is to develop
an open, royalty-free, next-generation
video coding format that is:
* Interoperable and open;
* Optimised for the Internet;
* Able to scale to any modern device
at any bandwidth;
* Designed with a low computational
footprint and optimised for
hardware;
* Capable of consistent,
highest-quality, real-time video
delivery, and;
* Flexible for both commercial
and non-commercial content,
including user-generated content.
These considerations led to the
creation of AV1. Able to take H.264,
HEVC and VP9 head on in the race to
the top, the new codec is on track to
become the most effective of all in
complex scenarios. Yet, the solution
also pushes a radically different
envelope: it will become the first open

source and royalty-free codec in use.
This positioning in a world dominated
by proprietary solutions is creating
new avenues for internet players,
who can now compete with traditional
broadcasters on similar grounds.
Yet Another Codec?
In the spectrum of online video, you
probably already know that H.264
(also known as AVC) is ubiquitous.
Nearly every device and operating
system supports decoding either on
hardware or software. Yet, this widely
deployed solution is nowhere near as
efficient as the next generation codecs
in terms of compression rate.
According to Netflix' recent tests and
experiments, H.265 (also known as
HEVC) can deliver up to 50% bitrate
savings when compared to previous
generation codecs like H.264/AVC.
Similar to H.265, VP9 is another great
option when it comes to reducing
bandwidth consumption or delivering
higher quality with the same bitrate
- bitrate savings can reach up to 50%
compared to H.264, dramatically
lowering your CDN costs. However,
there is still room for improvement,
and our own tests have shown AV1
delivers a 30% performance increase
over existing standards in complex
scenarios, making it particularly suited
to very high quality, complex scenarios
like High Dynamic Range (HDR), Wide
Colour Gamut (WDR), AR/VR and
360-video.

An AV1-Enabled World
While it is still early days to predict
how AV1 will be rolled out, we already
know browsers will be a priority to
reach a critical mass. All major vendors
- Google, Microsoft and Mozilla - will
make sure that the codec finds its
way into the browsers soon after the
bitstream freeze. In partnership with
Mozilla in late 2017 we demonstrated
AV1 playback with HTML5 in Firefox
Nightly, and the results suggest it's
only a matter of time before the
official marriage of AV1 with other
browsers.
For online video specialists such as
us, it will also be interesting to observe
the AV1 transition from browsers to
AV1-enabled legacy devices. AMD,
Intel and NVIDIA cover the desktop
market quite nicely, while mobile is
already backed by ARM and Intel. With
Apple now on board, both Mac and
Android will adopt AV1 across their
entire product lines, which puts AV1
in a unique position in the market.
Contrary to most codecs at launch,
AV1 is already supported by the entire
ecosystem. For device manufacturers

Bitmovin - AV1

and video services, this means the
upgrade or replacement of their
existing streaming infrastructure to
accommodate this new codec could
already be planned over the next few
months.
Over the last decade, video delivery
has evolved rapidly, and it is fair to
say that up until now, most of the
focus has been on video quality and
improving the user experience. As the
industry is gearing for fast adoption
of the new codec and with support by
both Android and Mac ecosystems,
incorporating AV1 into a multi-codec
workflow will allow content providers
to dynamically serve AV1 encoded
content to users with compatible and
complex systems.
With AV1, the ability to deliver great
quality video and excellent quality of
experience is a "must have" rather
than a competitive advantage, and we
strongly support the AOMedia's rollout
plan in the near future where we will
showcase even more integrations of
AV1 into our product portfolio, both for
live and VoD applications.

World First Demo Of AV1 Browser Playback
In 2017, we partnered with Mozilla
to bring AV1 playback with HTML5 to
Firefox as the first browser to play AV1
MPEG-DASH/HLS streams.
The integration showed that AV1
would enable consumers to benefit

from a 25 to 35% performance
increase over existing standards such
as VP9 and H.265/HEVC, bringing a
faster, smoother and greater video
quality level than ever before.
www.bitmovin.com
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://demo.bitmovin.com/public/firefox/av1/ http://www.bitmovin.com
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