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Media Technology

VideoLAN Announces Dav1d, a New Libre and Open Source AV1 Decoder (jbkempf.com) 88

Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VideoLan and developer of VLC media player, made the following announced Monday: AV1 is a new video codec by the Alliance for Open Media, composed of most of the important Web companies (Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft,...). AV1 has the potential to be up to 20% better than the HEVC codec, but the patents license is totally free, while HEVC patents licenses are insanely high and very confusing.

The reference decoder for AV1 is great, but it's a research codebase, so it has a lot to improve. Therefore, the VideoLAN, VLC and FFmpeg communities have started to work on a new decoder, sponsored by the Alliance of Open Media. The goal of this new decoder is: be small, be as fast as possible, be very cross-platform, correctly threaded, libre and (actually) Open Source. Without further due, the code: https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d
Recommended: A talk during VDD 2018 conference about dav1d.
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VideoLAN Announces Dav1d, a New Libre and Open Source AV1 Decoder

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  • by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Monday October 01, 2018 @04:36PM (#57407256) Homepage

    a patent troll magics up some patent relating to AV1 ?

    • by jmv ( 93421 )

      Trolls are always a problem for anything you do, but at least here's a long list of companies [aomedia.org] that are providing royalty-free licensing of their video patents for AV1. It's no guarantee, but it sure beats any other free video codec effort.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      a patent troll magics up some patent relating to AV1?

      Well that could certainly happen but it's a risk for all codecs or indeed software in general, they've done an IPR review to make sure it doesn't infringe on the patents of their competitors in the HEVC camp so it'll have to be a surprise contender. But if you look at the Fortune global 500 they got #11 (Apple), #18 (Amazon), #52 (Alphabet/Google), #71 (Microsoft), #92 (IBM), #146 (Intel), #212 (Cisco) and #274 (Facebook) on board. I think they can afford a few lawyers to get the patent declared invalid or

    • a patent troll magics up some patent relating to AV1 ?

      *I* have a patent on letters, and my wife has a patent on numbers. My son, however, has the patent on mixing letters and numbers so HE'LL be the one doing the suing in this case. Expect a notice R3a1 S00n N0w.

      (Oh nuts, he saw that, I'm in trouble now!)

  • When one isn't fluent in English, either because it's not the primary language or because one is an idiot incapable of being fluent in any language, the result is minor mayhem like replacing "without further ado" with "without further due".

    Why do Slashdot editors exist at all, if not to maintain that fluency when submitters cannot?

    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      "Without further due" is actually a native language speaker's mistake. Foreign learners are likely to learn English as a written language first, so they won't confuse "ado" and "due".
      • by macraig ( 621737 )

        I don't discount that possibility, since I accounted for it in the phrase "because one is an idiot incapable of being fluent in any language". Such a person will repeat the same stupid mistake with any language he only learns phonetically and otherwise not fully.

        Regardless, the question that demands an answer is: did the current Slashdot editor(s) also only learn English phonetically, or did they approve the submitter's stupid mistake for some other equally stupid reason? In either instance, why are they

  • Eggcorn (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @05:22PM (#57407492)

    Without further due

    For all intensive purposes, this has peaked my interest in one foul swoop.

    • Ah men!

    • I had to look-up "egghorn" and discovered all kinds of comical errors:

      "eggcorn" instead of acorn. "Mating name" instead of maiden name. "On the spurt of the moment" instead of on the spur of the moment. "Passes mustard" instead of passes muster. "Sammwich" instead of sandwich.

      - And since it's Oktoberfest: "Ziggy Zaggy" instead of the actual German phrase Ziche zache.

      - And in India: "Updation" instead of update.

      • Here's my list, fellow gnurds.

        Once and a lifetime opportunity, laundry mat, ad homonym attack, commynism, weight lifting can stump your groth, trial by error, refudiate, all of the sudden, a whole nother thing, nucular, aniliation, laxadaisical, irregardless, so long as, anyhow, besides the point, asterix, ax a question, Daylight Savings Time, every once and a while, misunderestimate, should of, a mute point, wreck havoc, hang grenade, brandy sniffer, bob wire fence, statue of limitations, try and make

      • "Passes mustard"

        Oww... that just got to hurt...

    • My god don't these people have spell chequers on their pee sea?

    • by gosand ( 234100 )

      I am glad you can now breath easier.

    • that's fowl swoop .... you insensitive cloud.

  • do we still need to squeeze every last byte out of video files given how big our storage devices have gotten to be and how fast our networks are getting to be? or what about a decade from now? or is this going to be a cause for compression for the next millenium?

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      Yes. Look into the bitrates required for light-field videos (~2 terabytes per minute IIRC). Mobile bandwidth caps are still going to suck in the USA a decade from now.

    • Yes, imagine you're Netflix or Youtube and you're streaming millions of videos at any given time. Better compression will save them lots of money.
      The change to H265 allowed for 4k Blurays which wouldn't be possible with the older codecs. Also many phones still have relatively small amounts of storage so saving space when recording video is worthwhile.
  • AV1 is a new video codec by the Alliance for Open Media, composed of most of the important Web companies (Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft,...).

    I would have added "developed" or "written" or "created" before "by", but whatever, I'm busy figuring out how a codec is composed of "most of the important Web companies" or why we're capitalizing "Web".

    AV1 has the potential to be up to 20% better than the HEVC codec, but the patents license is totally free, while HEVC patents licenses are insanely high and very confusing.

    I'm going to give you a pass on the unexplained "better", and "the patents license" may be an awful Britishism that I'll ignore (for now), but if the HEVC "patents licenses" are "insanely high", isn't that a problem? Are they going to go out and announce that they're taking HEVC public at $420?

    The reference decoder for AV1 is great, but it's a research codebase, so it has a lot to improve.

    I'd throw in "

    • by jaa101 ( 627731 )

      It's "without further adieu", you clown!

      Try "without further ado [grammarist.com]," you clown!

    • When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy

  • I had to downgrade from v3 to v2 because whatever they did to the interface has completely fucked it up.

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