AV1 is an open, royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media (Google, Netflix, Amazon, and others) to escape HEVC's licensing tangle. It is more efficient than HEVC - meaningfully lower bitrate for the same quality - which appeals directly to large streamers whose biggest cost is egress.
The trade-offs are encoding complexity (AV1 is computationally heavy to encode) and still-maturing hardware decode support, though newer phones, TVs, and chipsets increasingly include it. Platforms typically deploy AV1 first to high-traffic content and capable devices, where the bandwidth savings repay the encoding cost fastest.
The handbook · 7 volumes
Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook
AV1 cuts bitrate compared with HEVC without royalties, but encode cost and older devices decide where it pays off. Our seven-volume handbook covers the whole video stack; for AV1 start with Volume 1 on H.264, HEVC, AV1, encoder settings, and quality metrics, then Volume 2 on CMAF packaging and Volume 3 on players and delivery cost. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Planning an AV1 rollout on your OTT service without breaking playback on older devices?
We will estimate AV1 savings on your catalog and device mix and send a phased rollout plan. 250+ video products shipped since 2005.
