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Comment by jjcm | Hacker News Reader

For Netflix this likely doesn't matter. While Youtube deals with 300+ hours of content uploaded every minute that it has to encode, Netflix only has to encode ~100 titles per month. Even if it takes a month to encode 1 of these, it's still easily doable for Netflix.

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Perhaps they're only AV1-ing a blockbuster per week, say.

Yes and no. It's a cost-benefit deal. Just because they _can_ (and they surely can), doesn't mean it is cost beneficial to do so now. It takes CPU time (and therefore money) for each encode they do. If one takes much more resources to do, it may not be beneficial to do so yet. I originally posted my comment wondering if there had been some encoder breakthrough that I had missed that had made AV1 a viable option finally. Looks like there was, but it's still not nearly as good as it needs to be fore widespread adoption (looks like it's still 30x slower than a comparable HEVC or VP9 encode). So I guess it comes down to: are they saving enough on downstream bandwidth to balance out the CPU time for the encode? Releasing it would suggest yes, or they see some benefit to pushing the standard into the mainstream now rather than in six months regardless of the cost to them.

That kind of CPU load is a drop in the bucket for Netflix.

Yup. Run it during off peak with extra hardware. EZ.

Yeah this seems like a good job for AWS spot or the like. If it costs $.01/minute of video, probably worth it even if only a few hundred people watch the title.

savings on bandwidth will make up for it

Almost like Netflix has data analysts and experts in the field who have already calculated the cost benefits based on internal metrics unavailable to us and chosen to implement it...

I would argue that since the CPU is a one time cost but the bandwidth benefit is recurring and not just for the company but for the customers as well especially on mobile the calculation is rather easy.

> doesn't mean it is cost beneficial to do so now

But they are using AV1 now i.e. you should presume NetFlix have judged that the benefits outweigh the costs (unless you have other relevant information to share).

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