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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.
Royalty free and supported by all the major players goes a lot farther than a few percentage points so if it's even close AV1 wins. It also helps that they got the input of the hardware guys and that the algorithm is optimized for hardware implementations, combine that with the royalty free status and you can expect rapid uptake in the mobile space, something x265 has failed to achieve.
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The legal teams of 40 tech giants have gone over the spec for a few years, the chances of there being an unknown patent is unlikely. If there's going to be a troll attack it's likely to be an unrelated overbroad patent that's unlikely to stand up to re-review.
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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).
x265 is catching on slowly because a lot of things don't have hardware decoding for it yet and it's pretty intensive to do using CPU alone. If AV1 isn't any better in that regard, then it won't gain any ground compared to x265 there.
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If it didnt beat 264, that would be a problem and quite a shock, since 264 is old technology. So, thats not an accomplishment at all, beating a 10 year old format. They are really after beating 265, I would hope.
Current benchmarks (mostly synthetic tests) already show promising advantages in favour of AV-1 (the previous /. on AV-1's official announcement has links. Here 's yet another)
i.e.: per bits, it managed to pack more information than H265/HEVC
Now the psycho-visual optimization needs to be tuned a bit (the compressor need to learn better *which* of the information to pack or drop for a given amount of bits, but in general AV1 allows for more). And Netflix and Google should release more of the quality oriented tests (subjective tests from actual humans, and from AIs trained to have a somewhat similar response to human's visual system).
(As AV1 was just released, it's compressor isn't finely tuned yet and might wasting bit on packing information that an actual human viewer wouldn't give a shit)
(just like back when it was release x265 compressor didn't perform as visually pleasing as the older and better tested x264 compressor)
Over all that isn't much as a surprise.
H265/HEVC is an already released codec with a history.
AV1 is the new comer released now and supposed to be the next generation.
H265/HEVC isn't AV1's main competitor
AV1 supposed competitor is the next gen codec that will come out of MPEG (JVET), but that one isn't any close to release (but is expected to perform similarily good as AV1 compared to H265/HEVC)
Also the licensing shitstorm of JVET will also need to get solved once it is released, whereas the whole purpose that sparked AV1 was to make it royalty free.
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