Comments on: AV1 vs HEVC: Are the WebRTC codec wars back?

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 06:09:57 +0000

In reply to Tarwin.

Thanks Tarwin!

Decoding alone isn’t enough and anything shy of coverage of enough smartphones isn’t good when you factor in royalties. This makes the use of something like HEVC unrealistic for most use cases and developers.

By: Tarwin

Tarwin — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 23:57:07 +0000

Hi. I just want to clarify that a LOT of android devices support HEVC. They have for several generations (flagships for about 7 years in decode albeit only 8bit in the beginning) to the point where it has trickled down throughout almost all of Qualcomm’s portfolio (even all smart displays on the market support 8bit HEVC). And I remember 5 years ago I had a cheap mediatek powered tablet (about $150) which also had HEVC support (10bit if I’m not mistaken).

And most support it in encode and decode now. In fact more Android devices support HEVC than VP9 (VP9 hardware support generally came some years after HEVC so more older devices lack it compared to HEVC).

Of course, whether communications programs employ it is another matter and there I have no idea (it would behoove them IMHO due to the numbers vs VP9 for compatibility’s sake, but who knows when it comes to royalties). Media playback is great though =)

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:08:20 +0000

In reply to Rami. Not that I am a ware of.

By: Rami

Rami — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:11:42 +0000

In reply to Tsahi Levent-Levi. Thanks Tsahi, there any usb cameras that can produce VP8 natively?

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:56:41 +0000

In reply to Rami. Most vendors use VP8 end-to-end today.

By: Rami

Rami — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:54:33 +0000

So what to choice for WEBRTC? We did h264, but some phones on MTK cpu, lack of support 🙁
what general recommendation to put array of servers to transcode to vp8/9?

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Tue, 26 May 2020 04:59:44 +0000

In reply to Bernard Aboba.

Bernard, thanks for this.

I haven’t even gone into technical superiority as I think it doesn’t matter at this point.

AV1 hardware acceleration exists in %0.01 of the compute devices that WebRTC is available on. HEVC probably in %5?

Both codecs aren’t really ready for widespread use when it comes to real time communications outside of specific walled gardens and restricted scenarios. Both codecs aren’t implemented yet in web browsers (they have some kind of limited availability but not more).

Until AV1 is available everywhere (=a lot more than where you can find VP9 today) it will be fighting against HEVC.

By: Bernard Aboba

Bernard Aboba — Tue, 26 May 2020 04:24:23 +0000

I think you’re missing the forrest for the trees. Steve Jobs once said: “I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder.”
AV1 was designed to integrate with the next wave of WebRTC video innovation: e2e encryption, SVC and codec-independent forwarding. So it’s not about the video codec, but rather the next generation architecture.

1. With WebRTC now incorporating e2e encryption via Insertable Streams (and SFrame), and NSA now recommending e2e security, conferencing systems need an RTP header extension to forward packets since the payload may be opaque. So if a browser and codec doesn’t support Insertable Streams or a forwarding header extension integrated with the next generation codec, it will not meet NSA requirements, and conferencing vendors won’t be able to provide full functionality.

2. SVC support is important for conferencing. AV1 has SVC built-in; in HEVC it is an extension. The Dependency Descriptor (defined in the AV1 RTP payload specification) is superior to the Framemarking RTP header extension for spatial scalability modes. If a browser (and next generation codec) doesn’t support SVC along with a forwarding header extension, it won’t be competitive.

3. AV1 includes screen coding tools as a basic feature, not an extension as in HEVC. This is a major competitive advantage for conferencing.

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Tue, 19 May 2020 17:27:38 +0000

In reply to Noe. 👍

By: Noe

Noe — Tue, 19 May 2020 17:10:15 +0000

Now I know why my phone is struggling to play a 60fps 1080p AV1 video.