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AV1 Beats x264 and Libvpx-Vp9 in Practical Use Case (facebook.com)
An anonymous reader shares a blog post by Facebook engineer: We tested AV1 (a new open-source, royalty-free media codec) under conditions that closely match the most common real-world use cases for Facebook video. Our test examined AV1's performance vs. practical open source video encoders that can be deployed to a practical production system, rather than merely testing efficiency vs. standard reference software encoders (i.e., H.264/AVC Joint Model or JM). By structuring the test this way, we were able to show how the codec will perform in a true production environment compared with current widely used alternatives, such as x264 and libvpx-vp9.
Our testing shows AV1 surpasses its stated goal of 30% better compression than VP9, and achieves gains of 50.3%, 46.2% and 34.0%, compared to x264 main profile, x264 high profile and libvpx-vp9, respectively. The new codec requires longer encoding times vs. current alternatives, however, due to increased complexity. Our tests were conducted primarily with Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) video files, because those are currently the most popular video formats on Facebook. But because AV1's performance increased as video resolution increased, we conclude the new compression codec will likely deliver even higher efficiency gains with UHD/4K and 8K content.
Our testing shows AV1 surpasses its stated goal of 30% better compression than VP9, and achieves gains of 50.3%, 46.2% and 34.0%, compared to x264 main profile, x264 high profile and libvpx-vp9, respectively. The new codec requires longer encoding times vs. current alternatives, however, due to increased complexity. Our tests were conducted primarily with Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) video files, because those are currently the most popular video formats on Facebook. But because AV1's performance increased as video resolution increased, we conclude the new compression codec will likely deliver even higher efficiency gains with UHD/4K and 8K content.
Ogg and Matroska are contrainers not codecs. AV1 is a codec.
Time has shown that that for the most part "royalty free" doesn't mean a whole lot (ie, while Ogg and Matroska are perfectly functional, they never became the dominant forms used in their sectors).
Well Ogg and Matroska are container formats, if you mean Vorbis (2000) it was extremely late to the party compared to MP3 (1993) and missed the whole revolution. You can use Matroska with H.264/HEVC, if you mean Theora, the VPx codecs, Dirac and the other alternative codecs I'll agree they lost badly to H.264 and I think it's mostly because they never moved out of the software research stage and into accelerated hardware. After Google bought On2 then VP9 became something of a trial balloon for that through Android, now it looks like a broad alliance is ready to kick MPEG to the curb. I wouldn't bet on history repeating itself this time.
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H.265 is only usable by Big Media Companies and Pirates. Media companies are vertically integrated and can deal with the horrible licensing fee situation, and Pirates simply don't care.
I don't think you understand the support behind AV1 vs x265. Only Apple is going to implement x265 in browser. The others, no. They ALL will implement AV1 in the browser. Netflix will be AV1. YouTube will be AV1. Facebook will be AV1. Amazon Video will be AV1.
The licensing around x265 is a complete disaster. Just about every major media company is going to steer clear away from them where possible. This is a completely different scenario than x264 vs the lesser known media formats.
Bottom line is the difference is support/backing. And it's vastly in favor of AV1.
And to add, this isn't conjecture either. Every major player you can name pretty much is a member of the alliance that is building AV1 (not just supporting, but the actual developers of the codec). Just right off the bat, you have nVidia, AMD, ARM, Intel (hardware), Cisco, Broadcom, Realtak (networking), Microsoft, Apple, Google, Mozilla, Adobe, VLC (software), Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu (content publishers). And this isn't even a complete list by far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Beating x264 (the encoder) is a very big accomplishment, because:
- It is very well recognized as the leading H264 encoder
- An incredible amount of time has been spent optimizing it
- It has been done while avoiding patent encumbered, which takes many well established algorithms/techniques off the table
Claiming that it's "not an accomplishment at all" tells me that you're extremely ignorant of the level of work involved here.