AV2 Codec: Increased video quality for Netflix and others

Announced a few weeks ago by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), AV2 (the second version of the AV1 compression codec launched in 2018) will be launched at the end of this year, and some details on its improvements have been revealed in advance of the official specifications which will also be published at the end of the year.

AV2, 30% more efficient££££ It was Andrey Norkin, a researcher at Netflix and contributor to the AOM, who released these few pieces of information during a technical presentation (the video here, if you are interested). To summarize, AV2 has been in development for five years, and it will be roughly 30% more efficient than its predecessor in terms of compression.

AV2, scalable codec££££ It will thus be possible to benefit from the same quality as before on services like Netflix, but with less bandwidth consumption, or better quality with the same bandwidth, or finally a compromise between these two options. Concretely, these improvements will mainly benefit [abc]Ultra HD[/abc] [abc]4K[/abc], and [abc]8K[/abc], for those who are concerned. In addition, AV2 allows the broadcast of simultaneous streams and immersive formats, such as 3D via several video layers, or [abc]PIP[/abc] to view several viewing angles at the same time, for example on a sports broadcast like F1. Finally, AV2 is scalable and extensions will come in the future, for example, compatibility with 12-bit video (and higher) as well as artificial intelligence features.