AV1: Open but debatable alternative
Because HEVC support has confused users and challenged tech companies, an alternative codec solves much of the complexity associated with HEVC.
AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) was created as an open, royalty-free video codec by a group of companies called the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), fed up with dealing with the HEVC patent license. AV1 is one in 2018 royalty-free patent policyand its reference implementations use a authorizing software license (available here). AOMedia, whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia and Samsung in 2023, he claimed AV1 is 30 percent more efficient than HEVC.
AOMedia executive director Dr. Pierre-Anthony Lemieux, “AOMedia believes that its royalty-free patent policy and permissive copyright license help bring next-generation media experiences to more people, faster.”
HEVC was introduced in 2013, so companies had years to adopt it before AV1 arrived. But the AV1 is less common than you might expect after eight years, mainly due to compatibility issues. Compared to HEVC, its supposed efficiency comes from the use of more advanced algorithms. But these algorithms usually require more compression and more powerful hardware. AOMedia member Meta in 2023, named Client-side hardware decoding as AV1’s biggest hurdle.
After AV1’s release, some hardware companies hesitated to adopt AV1 decoders because the advanced requirements could increase consumer prices, according to the 2025 report. The Verge. AV1 support will also introduce heavy and unnecessary complexity and cost to some gadgets, including budget smartphones and Blu-ray players (the former rarely support AV1, the latter not at all).
Software solutions can handle decryption on the client side, but they can also consume and drain more computing resources. battery life.
As a result, some components, streaming devices, and many end devices, especially smartphones, have recently added hardware-based AV1 support or only partially support it, such as for single encoding.
