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AOMedia To Release AV2 Video Codec At Year's End (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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"Set for a year-end release, AV2 is not only an upgrade to the widely adopted AV1 but also a foundational piece of AOMedia’s future tech stack.

AV2, a generation leap in open video coding and the answer to the world’s growing streaming demands, delivers significantly better compression performance than AV1. AV2 provides enhanced support for AR/VR applications, split-screen delivery of multiple programs, improved handling of screen content, and an ability to operate over a wider visual quality range. AV2 marks a milestone on the path to an open, innovative future of media experiences."

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[–] 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

So... a lot more people now have :

  • 4G/5G on the go and proper broadband at home and office and even in unique location (sadly via MuskSat for now...) other ways to get data
  • very capable devices in mobile phones, (mostly Android) clients e.g. video projector or dongles, of course computers
  • human eyes... that can't really appreciate 4K on average

... so obviously we should NOT stop looking for more efficient ways and new usages but I'm also betting that we are basically reaching diminishing return already. I don't think a lot of people care anymore about much high screen resolution or frequency for typical video streaming. Because that's the most popular usage I imagine everything else, e.g XR, becomes relative to it niche and thus has a hard time benefiting as much from the growth in performances we had until now.

TL;DR: OK cool but aren't we already flattening the curve on the most popular need anyway?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It's not for the end user at this point, it's for YouTube/streaming companies to spend less on bandwidth at existing resolutions. Even a 5% decrease in size for similar quality could save millions in bandwidth costs over a year for YouTube or Netflix.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Thanks for the clarification, it makes me wonder though, is it bandwidth saving at no user cost? i.e is the compression improved without requiring more compute at the end to decompress?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Without hardware decoding, it will take more compute to decompress, but sites usually wait to fully roll out new codecs until hardware decoding is more ubiquitous, because of how many people use low-powered streaming sticks and Smart TVs.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Then it's arguably delegating some of the cost to the final user, large streaming companies spending a bit less on IXP contracts while viewers have to have newer hardware that might need a bit more energy too to run.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    On the upside, the end user needs to use up less data for the same content. This is particularly interesting under 4G/5G and restrictive data plans, or when accessing places / servers with weak connection. It helps avoid having to wait for the "buffering" of the video content mid-playback.

    But yes, I agree each iteration has diminishing returns, with a higher bump in requirements. I feel that's a pattern we see often.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    This! Also there's AI upscaling, if good enough it could (in theory) make a 1080p video show with a 4k quality only very few lucky and healthy young people would be able to tell apart. In the meantime, my eyesight progressively gets worse with age.

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