After being pushed back multiple times, the AV2 codec has been officially released by the Alliance for Open Media. The organization claims that the new codec has roughly 30% greater video compression efficiency compared to AV1, which was released back in 2018.
The Alliance for Open Media, which is made up of industry titans including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and more, developed both codecs under the organization’s royalty-free patent policy.
“AV2 was developed through a rigorous, collaborative process involving some of the world’s leading technology companies,” said Adrian Grange and Andrey Norkin, Co-Chairs of AOMedia’s Video Codec Working Group. “Proposed tools were evaluated for implementation complexity and tested under common test conditions to ensure that not only is the specification high-performing but also well-optimized for efficient hardware implementation.”
In addition to bringing with it greater efficiency, the organization says AV2 enables scalable bitstreams and supports multi-stream and multi-view scenarios, “including stereoscopic video, multiple camera angles, and composite video experiences delivered within a single bitstream, as well as more traditional VOD and video conferencing workflows.”
