AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

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AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#1 Post by webfork »

So it's not quite here yet, but in the next 6 months to a year, programs here on the site should begin to support encoding.

AV1 is a new video codec that promises to help companies and individuals transmit high-quality video over the internet efficiently, without paying royalty fees. Being royalty-free is important because:
  • Current streaming video costs (a lot of) money
  • Newer codecs are twice as efficient
  • New codecs may cost ten times more
  • With H.264, small players get a free ride
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/07/1 ... eo-codecs/

AV1 is different from AVC/H.264 because it:
  • Uses next-generation compression technology that is nearly twice as efficient
  • Can transmit high-quality video faster over the internet
  • Has no licensing fees; anyone can compress and decode video files without paying royalties
  • Can deliver higher-quality experiences to end users, even when bandwidth is constrained
https://research.mozilla.org/av1-media-codecs/

You can evidently create the file type right now using FFMPEG, but encoding is very slow, something that is owed to how new the codec is. Hopefully this will be THE standard by 2020.

Related:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1
* https://hackernoon.com/encoding-av1-700b6ee4210

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Re: AV1 video codec

#2 Post by SYSTEM »

webfork wrote: Sun Sep 30, 2018 1:50 pm Hopefully this will be THE standard by 2020.
AV1 has good chances to make it there. It's royalty-free, and performs better (i.e. can achieve either better compression ratio or quality) than anything else. It would be stupid for companies and individuals not to utilize AV1.*

* (except for MPEG-LA members, who lose licensing money that way)
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Re: AV1 video codec

#3 Post by webfork »

Largely driven by patent woes, less-than-ideal compression, and ancient formats, I'd hung a lot of hopes on AV1 as the solution to a lot of different problems. It also seems to have an uncharacteristically large number of major corporate sponsors, but that doesn't guarantee success. Software and technology, are not simple and every codec wants to lean on hardware decoding to save battery life.

Anyway, I'm a little surprised it's been 1.5 years since the original post in this thread and things haven't moved very quickly here. Still, there are some updates:

  • Netflix is currently using the video format on Android and is seems already pleased with the bandwidth savings.
    While our goal is to roll out AV1 on all of our platforms, we see a good fit for AV1’s compression efficiency in the mobile space where cellular networks can be unreliable, and our members have limited data plans. Selected titles are now available to stream in AV1 for customers who wish to reduce their cellular data usage by enabling the “Save Data” feature.
  • Apple has joined Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla all now seem to be supporting AV1. There's some oustanding questions as to whether or not this will be exactly patent free by a group that appears to have had nothing to do with the format's development, but it's actively being used:
    Developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), the AV1 codec provides a 20 percent improvement in compression efficiency on the VP9 codec it was using for the Android app. https://www.htxt.co.za/2020/02/07/the-a ... -you-data/
  • Handbrake - It's old news, but that project said they'll tackle it once it becomes viable. There was a lot of excitement about it (maybe too much) in this thread from 2 yrs ago:
    https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/ ... -380591452 ... evidently they've added a decoder in the most recent version (about 4 months old), but no encoder yet.
---

AVIF (the derived image format)

It's listed as also being driven by Netflix and (at least in the headline) a replacement for JPEG:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/netflix-j ... st-option/

Supposedly paint.net can evidently open the files but not save. I've so far only tested Firefox with some test AVIF images without success.

EDIT NOTE: I accidentally left off probably the most important news item in this post: active use by Netflix.

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#4 Post by webfork »

webfork wrote: Sun Sep 30, 2018 1:50 pm So it's not quite here yet...
Looks like it may have finally arrived. You can watch an AV1 video in Firefox today: https://demo.bitmovin.com/public/firefox/av1/ ... I have a 7 year old system running under virtualization with no video card, but it still looked great.

Also in Firefox, you can also enable it on Youtube, though of course only some videos will play in the new format.

It's also available not just in the latest VLC: https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=599 ... the most recent release included some optimizations: https://twitter.com/videolan/status/125 ... 89223?s=20

---

Not much on the image side. Yesterday, Ghacks posted about experimental support in Firefox Nightly for AVIF.

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#5 Post by webfork »

So a Nomacs update is out, now supporting AVIF.

I tried exporting one of my desktop backgrounds (JPEG) with the "best" quality converter to the new format saw both a quality and size decrease. On the right is the original file (JPEG), left is the AVIF file set to "best" compression:

Image

Size difference: 660k -> 93k (14%)

Caveats on this test: I only tested two files. Also, using a lossy compression method on an already lossy compressed file will almost always see a quality decrease, regardless of format. While I wish there was a version closer to the original that was a similar size, I am impressed by the size-quality tradeoff.

Most importantly, we are not close to a point where you should not abandon the JPEG format for AVIF unless working with large, high quality JPEG files that you wanted to reduce anyhow.

Related

The program will open the other contender for JPEG replacement used by primarily by Apple (HEIC) but Nomacs does not currently save HEIC files. I don't plan on testing that format due to lack of general support and patent concerns that will probably keep it unsupported by most tools in years. I'm expecting an outcome similar to the JPEG 2000 format.

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#6 Post by webfork »

Update on AVIF: a smaller, patent-free successor to JPEG should shortly be available in some 70% of browsers:

AVIF is out in Chrome.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/g ... f-support/

Mozilla has had AVIF compatibility for some time now, but it's still limited and needs to be enabled via setting the image.avif.enabled flag to true in about:config "Firefox is capable of displaying single AVIF files. Unfortunately, in-page support (e.g. within <img> or <picture> tags) in Firefox is not complete yet" (https://libre-software.net/avif-test/)

... but it doesn't sound like the functionality is far away. Very exciting stuff.

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#7 Post by webfork »

I kept waiting on Firefox to go live with on-by-default AVIF support but it keeps getting pushed back. Here's a quick update:

Now supported by GIMP, FreeVimager Nomacs, Paint.net so far. There's also DarkTable and I found a pretty solid online converter: https://avif.io/

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#8 Post by dirty_dist »

Firefox now has support on live: https://caniuse.com/avif :wink:
Hopefully Apple follows up in the next 24 months, or it's the WebP story all over again. :roll:

Also, thanks for the shoutout to converter avif.io! In the last months, I've added dozens of tutorials regarding AVIF support here: https://avif.io/blog/ . It might be worth checking out if you're interested. :D

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#9 Post by webfork »

dirty_dist wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:51 am Firefox now has support on live: https://caniuse.com/avif :wink:
Hopefully Apple follows up in the next 24 months, or it's the WebP story all over again. :roll:
Ah fantastic news. I'd almost given up.

Unfortunately, Apple collects royalties for some other codecs, so it's possible they'll ignore the format. My hope is the dramatic bandwidth improvements for smaller images and videos will eventually compel them. Netflix has already saved huge on bandwidth via the format, and I expect Youtube to follow. Time will tell.

---

EDIT: Additional relevant link: https://avif.io/blog/tutorials/firefox/

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#10 Post by webfork »

Update: the latest version of Converseen includes batch AVIF conversion, along with it's other conversion features.

Image

I also had some luck with some ImageMagick batch tools, but recognize most graphics people are looking for a graphical front-end.

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#11 Post by webfork »

In terms of save options available, there are some additional capabilities depending on your editor:

GIMP save options
Image

Paint.net save options
Image

(Converseen mentioned above has no save options, just a direct conversion)

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#12 Post by webfork »

Not sure who I expected to embrace the AVIF format first, but one notable standout is Unsplash.com, the open licensed photo site. In digging around for desktop backgrounds, I've noticed a high percentage of their images are AVIF. I tested uploading a file and it started out as 5.53 megs and was compressed to 560k in AVIF format for display on the website.

It's not a total AVIF embrace, however. If you download the "original size" file, it comes in a JPEG file. And it wasn't the *original* file, as the download was 2 megs smaller than what I posted.

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Re: AV1 video codec

#13 Post by webfork »

Adamakono wrote: Thu Mar 17, 2022 1:53 pm What is the final result in 2022? : D
While I certainly prefer new formats go through a process, AV1 and AVIF have seen a much slower adoption than I expected. That said, two of the biggest streaming services in the world (Netflix and Youtube) have enabled those tools, so it's far from a failure.

Apple in particular is likely to remain a major hold-out, which affects a browser that's basically bound to most devices and thus the rest of the industry. That's been a good thing in many cases but not here. They have existing agreements for video and image codecs and aren't exactly an open source / open standards company. Also they are frequently focused on power usage (and battery life) to the exclusion of everything else.

At least from a freeware perspective, the biggest hold-up at this stage seems to be encoder speed. Other tools in this space are plenty fast and mostly do the trick, so it seems to come down to whether or not bandwidth is a major expense. After all, if it's takes 10x longer for a video that's 20% smaller, is that worth it?
Last edited by webfork on Fri Mar 18, 2022 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: (Better wording)

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#14 Post by webfork »

Really interesting image compression comparison app: https://eclipseo.github.io/image-comparison-web/ with drop-down boxes at the top for various views. I was pleased to see how well the royalty-free option (AVIF) performed.

Care of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30712199

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Re: AV1 video / AVIF graphic format

#15 Post by webfork »

Looks like it's finally happening: the last major holdout was Apple and their Safari browser. I think they were hoping that HEIC would somehow blow up.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple- ... on-ios-16/

It looks like JPEG might finally be on it's way out in 2023, which means smaller images and a faster internet. Great news.

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