Google has released AV1 version 3.5, the latest version of the video encoding technology that is likely to become a major player in the future of the content and media industry. This new version optimizes the efficiency of CPU encoding and expands hardware support.
Just four years after its initial release in March 2018, the AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) codec is challenging competitors such as H.264 and HEVC/H.265 to become one of the industry’s most commonly used video standards. Hardware support is accelerating, and now developers have released a new version of the royalty-free technology that brings very significant performance improvements for encoding in CPU-bound scenarios.
Google engineers have just released the latest version, AOM-AV1 3.5, which retains compatibility with previous iterations. It introduces new APIs and features while improving speed and memory optimizations.
AV1 version 3.5 is much more efficient when used with multi-threaded processors. Encoding time is significantly shorter depending on the source resolution. Tests have shown a 34% reduction in encoding time on CPUs with 16 or more threads.
According to the official list of changes, the new codec can use frame-parallel encoding for up to 30-34% performance gains on 1080p video, and 2160/4K resolutions on 32-threaded CPUs.
Streaming software, including OBS Studio, video editing and recording tools, can take advantage of AV1’s enhanced performance to provide users with a more enjoyable and efficient experience. The codec already supports frame-parallel encoding on more threads using the “–fp-mt” parameter, but this option is available by default in version 3.5.
