In this blog, you will learn why AV1 is getting closer to practical use in WebRTC-based real-time interactive streaming. We cover rapid progress in live AV1 encoding on GPUs and ASICs, widening browser and device support, and new WebRTC compatibility work like SVC and RTP payload formats. You will also see how Red5 Pro’s XDN and LCEVC can lower compute costs and expand device reach as AV1 adoption accelerates.

Advances supporting the next-generation AV1 codec have intensified over the past year, adding new urgency to the question of when the technology might become useful in WebRTC-based real-time interactive streaming applications.

There’s no question live video encoding supported by AV1 would benefit real-time streaming every bit as much as it stands to benefit traditional HTTP streaming. The codec achieves bitrate reductions in the range of 30%-40% compared to HEVC/H.265 and 60%-70% relative to AVC/H.264. Moreover, AV1 is available royalty-free with major tech sector backing through the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), whose members include Amazon, AMD, Apple, Cisco, Google, Hulu, IBM, LG, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Intel, IBM, Samsung, and many other leading players.

But the amount of computing power it takes to run the encoding and decoding processes has been a major impediment to AV1 adoption, especially when it comes to encoding at live video frame rates. As demonstrated in countless tests, there’s been no practical way to use AV1 to encode video in real time except at very low levels of resolution. For example, a series of recent tests conducted by cloud CDN and compute platform operator Cloudflare found that even if all 48 cores of the top-line AMD EPYC 7642 CPU processor were used to encode a 4K clip commonly used in such testing, it would take 43 seconds to encode two seconds.

But the perspective on the possibilities is shifting rapidly. And we at Red5 Pro are paying close attention to developments.

1. AV1 Live Encoding Is Closer than Ever to Commercial Viability

In 2021, Google released its desktop Chrome 90 browser with an AV1 encoder optimized for video conferencing with WebRTC. The encoder is targeted to two- to four-core CPUs for 2 Mbps transmission of 720p video at 30fps. This points to the fact that encoding AV1 for low bit-rate transmissions at sub-1080p levels is now doable on most PCs, which means the codec can be widely used to get decent-quality video over low-bandwidth mobile links that are the sole means of internet access in many parts of the world.

Cisco took another step in this direction in 2021 on the fringes of its Webex video conferencing service. The company now gives users the option to turn on live AV1 encoding to improve the quality of shared displays of video clips during conference calls.

Anyone on such a call with a device capable of decoding a low-bitrate AV1 stream will see the clip with much greater clarity. Cisco said it expects to expand the use of AV1 on Webex over time but had not announced any further steps as of YE 2022.

A much more dramatic sign of progress on the AV1 encoding front came in late 2022 with the introduction of powerful new AV1-enabled graphics engines by Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. As of this writing, for the first time, live AV1 encoding in fast-action gameplay can be executed by some versions of Intel’s Arc Alchemist and Nvidia’s RTX 4000 series running on gaming cards, which became commercially available in October. AMD released its far less expensive RX 7000 platform in early 2023 with no lofty claims for live AV1 encoding. Even so, early comparisons of the three tech companies’ latest advances, like this one reported by PC World, found them more or less on par with one another when it came to AV1 encoding of content for recording and archival usage.

It’s clear the AV1 live streaming barrier has been broken for gamers who want to shell out $1,500 or so to purchase the Intel or Nvidia gaming cards now on sale from multiple vendors. For example, testing of live video encoding with Intel Arc’s AV1 encoder against leading H.264 GPU encoders, as reported by PC World, found that when set to encode HD 1080p video at 3.5 Mbps, the quality of the video is superior to the output of H.264 encoders delivering the content at nearly twice that bitrate.

Of course, GPU cards significantly outperform encoders running on CPU cores or CPU cores enhanced with GPU acceleration, which remain the primary encoding engines in OTT streaming services. But these latest GPU platform advances point to the likelihood that the densification and architectural advances achieved with gaming encoders will be adopted in succeeding generations of hybrid CPU/GPU processors.

Another hardware advance signaling a role for live AV1 encoding occurred at the 2022 IBC trade show in Amsterdam, where RealSprint, the Swedish company operating the Vindral CDN service, revealed it would be introducing AV1 live encoding on its platform using ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) hardware technology from NETINT Technologies. NETINT’s low-latency 4K AV1 encoder harbingers the emergence of ASICs as a potential game changer in advanced codec operations, according to NETINT COO Alex Liu, as quoted by Streaming Media. “[These applications] can only be met with ASIC hardware encoding,” Liu said.

2. Browser, Player Support for AV1 Decoding Is Gaining Wider Traction

Meanwhile, on the decoding side, there’s been a surge in browser and app support for AV1 software decoding on high-power devices. For now, this means that entities streaming on-demand content can use AV1 encoding with high confidence that a growing share of users will be able to take advantage of the bandwidth savings, which are beneficial to distributors as well as receivers.

The Google-backed Chrome browser and apps based on Android 10 or later can support software-based AV1 decoding on any device with enough processing power to accommodate the codec. Firefox, too