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Flow

I see that Safari does not support this (yet).

Might it be possible to compile this to wasm and decode it that way on the client?

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Yes, and in fact you can see a demo of dav1d compiled to wasm here:

http://jabberfr.org/tmp/ogv.js/

Note this works fine in desktop and mobile Safari.

I just hope very much that Apple does not take too much time with this. After all, they joined the Alliance for Open Media in early 2018.

It would be nice to finally have a codec again that works with every (modern) platform after such a long time. The split of support for HEVC and VP9 always doubles the effort to distribute content effectively.

Is Safari becoming the new Internet Explorer?

Nah, pretty sure Chrome is. I'm apparently not alone[1][2][3] in believing so.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16805216/google-chrome-onl...

[2]: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3199425/top-web-browse...

[3]: https://erik.itland.no/chrome-is-the-new-internet-explorer-4...

GP is comparing it to IE6 in terms of being behind other browsers in implementing features, not in terms of publishers only checking that their pages render correctly in that browser.

IE was both the browser that were first with features and had lots of features the others didn't have, and the browser that lagged with new features.

It has been for a long time... It's opensource even, but they seem to ignore patches

(To be pedantic: Safari is closed source, the WebKit that ships with Safari is mostly open source.)

How different is this than Google Chrome being closed vs Chromium being open? Does Safari have more substantial closed-source components?

Chromium basically ships with a usable, “de-Googled” browser in tree doesn’t it? WebKit has what you might call a demo. Look up MiniBrowser to see what I mean. It’s a web view and three buttons, basically.

What about the Webkit Nightly builds though? Those basically seem to be Safari.

...oh, huh, did something change in the past few years? I just checked, and the nightly builds do not download a full, usable app.

I could have sworn they used to though. You’d get an app called “Webkit”, but it functioned just like Safari for all intents and purposes.

Yes, Safari has more substantial closed source components. WebKit is comparable to Blink, not Chromium.

Primarily because of mobile. You can download a nightly build of Safari but you can’t install one on your phone.

Apple is a member of the development group, but they won't adopt it unless there's satisfactory hardware support.

That’s.. kinda on them isn’t it?

We'll find out when the next Apple TV is announced shortly. If AV1 isn't there people should worry. Apple was using HEVC in the iPhone 6, so they aren't scared to be early on this stuff.

Whether or not Apple TV has AV1 out of the box won't matter (although it would be nice).

If Netflix or YouTube want AV1 on Apple TV then they'll just implement it in their applications. Netflix has already implemented AV1 as an option in their Android application:

https://netflixtechblog.com/netflix-now-streaming-av1-on-and...

As far as I've seen, Mediatek has the only shipping smartphone SOC that supports AV1 hardware decoding.

It's still a bit early to get upset about other vendors, when Google's own Pixel line doesn't have hardware decode yet.

> I see that Safari does not support this (yet).

It also doesn't support VP9, so don't hold your breath.

> Might it be possible to compile this to wasm and decode it that way on the client?

Maybe, but I doubt the performance would be tolerable.

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