A few things - this is one step in a long, LONG path. AV2 is currently unusable in its current state (the encoder typically runs at around 1fps on good hardware), and likely will remain so til ~2028 when the first av2 hardware accelerated chips start dropping. Even then, I wouldn't expect AV2 streams to be common til 2030.

IMO, if it were just the efficiency gains on the table (which are substantial - ~20-30% over AV1), I'd say that AV2 isn't worth it. The biggest thing it does add though is multi-stream support, which will be a big win for VR and live sports. The other fun thing is you can send an alpha channel as a separate stream, which the file will then composite for proper transparent video support.

What I'm interested in is seeing how this will improve the AVIF image format. AVIF stomps the competition for low-bitrate still images (where chroma subsampling is used). For lossless images, not so much. Lossless JPEG XL and lossless WEBP make lossless AVIF look like a joke.

AV1 is being actively claim-charted by a lot of companies right now, and lawsuits are almost certainly coming. The same process is already starting for AV2, but most players are waiting for the AV1 cases to mature first.

People keep calling the AV-family codecs “royalty free,” but in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble.

And how long will it take before someone implements this standard and gets sued because Adobe or Dolby or whoever wanted to get slapped down? My knowledge may be out of date but if this is as "open" as AV1, I'm very skeptical that the individual companies will actually allow that. Greed and all that.

Mostly a joke... I've been waiting for the AV1 Apple TV, so now I'm just waiting for AV2 support as Apple TV as well now.

Neat but the real world still, and for decades to come - lives on h264 https://www.wink.co/documentation/Why-H264-Is-Almost-Always-...

I'm not a expert on video encoding

But i wonder if the future could depend less on fixed-function compression methods and more on AI networks that recreate the video but weight much less that a compressed video.

Neural codecs such as github.com/Orange-OpenSource/Cool-Chic

AV1 already was a big leap toward efficient and open video formats. I'm awaiting AV2 since a long time.

Sure it'll take a while since it's implemented in chips and hardware so we got efficient and fast hardware encoding/decoding.

But a ~25% higher efficiency sounds very promising in times of increasing storage prices and chip crises.

Dav2d doesn't have the same nice ring to it. I hope there's someone with a decent repo-name punning skill who'll contribute before that.

avi2ude? av2go?

Looking forward to a decently speedy encoder coming around. The reference one for AV1 is really not that great, and the same is true here. But as soon as we get SVT-AV2 or whatever, I'll be a very happy camper.

anyone performed a encoding and decoding benchmarking with the reference codec yet? I'd expect encoding to be dreadful, but maybe the decode is already usable

Is there an AV1 2.0? I'm not using this codec if they can't do basic semantic versioning right.

It takes a few years for vendors to support hardware decoding for a new standard, so we won't see it in widespread use anytime soon.

Congrats!

How is the case of fighting off Dolby's patent racketeering going? They tried to attack Snapchat for using AV1.

Now the real question: will The Industry™ again need for nerds and digital privateers to actually write and graft all the psy coding tools that makes their encoders usable (and I mean the word, using x264 as benchmark) for the quality-conscious and not just CPU-efficient VoD blurred to death with marketing yelling "PSNR! PSNR! PSNR!" at the top of their lungs? Will FGS be more usable?

Take a look at https://gitlab.com/AOMediaCodec/SVT-AV1/-/work_items/2269 for details (PS: SVT-AV1 claims to be suitable for AVIF yet doesn't support YUV444, lel)

I’m curious how much AV2 will actually help older hardware in practice.

I’m on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro: 2.6 GHz 6-core i7, 64 GB RAM. The machine is still more than powerful enough for normal desktop work and software dev, but YouTube in Chrome has become borderline unusable for me. My internet is fine, Safari plays the same videos smoothly, and YouTube “Stats for nerds” shows plenty of buffer but the decoding makes youtube unusable in chrome for me.