Why AV1 exists
H.265 brought large efficiency gains and a tangle of patent licensing. AV1 was created to offer better compression with no royalties, so that browsers, device makers and services could adopt it freely.
Device support
Support is strongest on hardware from the last few years, so AV1 is delivered alongside older codecs, not in place of them.
- Browsers: Chrome, Firefox and Edge decode it; Safari on devices with hardware support
- Android: hardware decoding on recent mid-range and flagship phones
- Apple: hardware decoding on recent iPhones and Macs
- Televisions: most recent smart TVs and streaming devices
- Older devices: software decoding only, which drains battery and may stutter at high resolutions
The trade-offs
AV1 encoding is slow and expensive, though it has improved greatly since the first encoders. It adds another set of renditions to store. The saving comes back on delivery, so it pays off for titles watched many times and not for a long tail watched rarely.
When to use it
- Your most-watched titles, where delivery cost dominates
- Audiences on constrained mobile networks, where lower bitrates mean fewer stalls
- 4K and HDR delivery to devices that support it
- Not as your only codec: keep H.264 for everything else
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