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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

AV1 features better compression for the same image quality and a key selling point is that it's patent free. Facebook and YouTube are pushing for AV1 adoption as that's going to save them $$$ on bandwidth. We'll see.

More info: https://www.videoproc.com/media-converter/av1-vs-hevc.htm

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I hope it's just not gonna be another VP9 where Google flips the switch to save some bucks on bandwidth but there not being any dedicated decode hardware in the wild yet, meaning everyone's battery gets nuked.

It absolutely will. They’ve already started experimenting with that.

The problem is it has to be that way because nobody includes hardware decoders until major players are using the codec, so it's chicken and egg.

In theory the hardware vendors could notice that Google is developing a new codec which they could be reasonably expected to start using and then include hardware decoders in their devices before Google starts using it, but they don't really have the right incentives to do that. "Our device has a hardware decoder for a codec nobody is using" isn't really something customers buy phones based on. Meanwhile if the vendor doesn't put it in this year's model then they get to sell you a new phone with a hardware decoder next year after Google flips the switch and your battery life tanks until you buy the new phone.

But VP9 decoder is supported by almost every SoC now (Phones, tablets, TV, Set-top boxes, etc).

And TV/STB SoC vendors like Amlogic, Broadcom or Realtek already announced products with AV1 support.

Not patent-free, royalty-free.

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