AV1 hardware decoder implementations

[benwaggoner]

As we're on the verge of lots of devices with hardware AV1 decode, I think it's time for a sticky about this in particular.

As Chrome and Firefox explicitly block HEVC decode even if the OS supports it, PC browsers are where AV1 is going to have the biggest improvement delta. Most other platforms (including Edge and Safari) have HEVC today, where the quality @ perf of HEVC and AV1 are pretty equivalent given relative maturity of encoders. While SW encoders do work, performance is going to be a limitation for 4K and 10-bit (which HDR requires). And the lack of HW DRM provides lots of limitations on premium content availability.

The Intel 11th gen Ice Lake CPUs are the first shipping PC implementation. Here's the best analysis of AV1 decode with Ice Lake I've seen: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3576298/tested-av1-performance-in-11th-gen-tiger-lake-vs-10th-gen-ice-lake-and-comet-lake-ryzen-4000.html.

I've not seen a test of DRM on Ice Lake, but I imagine it should work, and if it doesn't, a software bug fix is probably sufficient.

tl;dr works great, and as expected.

[benwaggoner]

Has anyone tested to see if any of the below support AV1 decode?
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series X|S
Apple M1 processor in the new Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro 13"

[hajj_3]

some info about apple m1 possibly have a 4k av1 hardware decoder or hybrid decoder: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-m1-vp9-av1-decoding.2269938/

[Yups]

The Intel 11th gen Ice Lake CPUs are the first shipping PC implementation.


Tigerlake not Icelake, big difference.

I have tested a few AV1 youtube videos in Chrome with my Tigerlake laptop and it works really good so far.

https://abload.de/img/av1zak7b.jpg

[birdie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Hardware

[benwaggoner]

Bad news: it appears that Qualcomm isn't doing HW AV1 in its 2021 chipsets.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16271/qualcomm-snapdragon-888-deep-dive/3

AV1 decoding didn’t make the cut this year unfortunately, which means wide-spread adoption in mobile for the codec will be delayed for another year.

[rubait]

Has anyone tried benchmarking the AV1 decoder performance on Tigerlake using DXVA Checker?

[rubait]

Tigerlake not Icelake, big difference.

I have tested a few AV1 youtube videos in Chrome with my Tigerlake laptop and it works really good so far.

https://abload.de/img/av1zak7b.jpg

Did you try playing back on DXVA checker? It can't seem to recognize the clip.

[Yups]

Did you try playing back on DXVA checker? It can't seem to recognize the clip.


When I use D3D11 playback in DXVA Checker there are image artifacts on both LAV Decoder as well as Microsoft AV1 extension. DXVA2 runs on both but only with LAV Decoder it appears to use the GPU.

Using MPC Home Cinema playback runs fine using D3D11 AV1 in LAV.

[Pepsi_Doggo]

RTX 3060Ti decoding 4K HDR(10-bit)@60fps above just 2ms render time:

https://files.catbox.moe/i27eit.jpg

[hajj_3]

Android tv boxes featuring Amlogic S905X4 chips are now available for as little as £30/$40 delivered from china. These can hardware decode AV1.

[quietvoid]

Android tv boxes featuring Amlogic S905X4 chips are now available for as little as £30/$40. These can hardware decode AV1.

Personally waiting on certified devices for streaming with hwdec.. hopefully this year.

[benwaggoner]

Has anyone tried the Xbox Series X|S hybrid decoder yet? It's obviously complex to get working, but I can imagine the next gen game consoles are going to be a big share of the AV1 capable living room devices in 2021.

[hajj_3]

Has anyone tried the Xbox Series X|S hybrid decoder yet?

Are you sure it can hybrid decode AV1?

[benwaggoner]

Are you sure it can hybrid decode AV1?
I am asking because I am not sure. But this sure sounded promising: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1929168&highlight=xbox#post1929168

[soresu]

Has anyone tried the Xbox Series X|S hybrid decoder yet? It's obviously complex to get working, but I can imagine the next gen game consoles are going to be a big share of the AV1 capable living room devices in 2021.

If you look at the system requirements section of the PDF it doesn't actually mention either XSS or XSX.

"Hardware: Xbox One, Xbox One S, or Xbox One X"

The googlesource repo is also labelled " GPU-accelerated AV1 decoder for the Xbox One".

So if someone can integrate this into Kodi or Plex for UWP, and Jaguar is enough to cover entropy decoding there are actually millions of devices in living rooms already.

I wouldn't expect MS to be any help on that score for obvious profit based reasons of pushing people to XSS and XSX.

Hopefully if it does get ported to the new console gen they use as much dav1d AVX2 asm as possible for the entropy decoding stage, I've no idea how much SSSE3 asm is in the current implementation to use on the Jaguar cores.

[benwaggoner]

If you look at the system requirements section of the PDF it doesn't actually mention either XSS or XSX.

"Hardware: Xbox One, Xbox One S, or Xbox One X"

The googlesource repo is also labelled " GPU-accelerated AV1 decoder for the Xbox One".

So if someone can integrate this into Kodi or Plex for UWP, and Jaguar is enough to cover entropy decoding there are actually millions of devices in living rooms already.
Entropy decoding isn't that complex, and well suited to fast single cores, and IIRC AV1's mandatory slices for high resolutions allow for parallelized entropy decode. This is a huge improvement from VP8-9, which were very hard to parallelize in decode.

I wouldn't expect MS to be any help on that score for obvious profit based reasons of pushing people to XSS and XSX.
I'm very confident that Microsoft is not worried about lack of demand for the new consoles! And they are putting a big emphasis on a uniform ecosystem. If they see material value in AV1, I'd expect them try to backport it. The real question is if they see value in AV1 over HEVC, which is supported in HW since Xbox One S.

Hopefully if it does get ported to the new console gen they use as much dav1d AVX2 asm as possible for the entropy decoding stage, I've no idea how much SSSE3 asm is in the current implementation to use on the Jaguar cores.
Jaguar doesn't have AVX2, alas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_(microarchitecture):
SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, CLMUL, MOVBE, AVX, F16C, BMI1

So, that would be friction for backporting dav1d to PS4 or Xbox One. SSSE3 may be sufficient for 4Kp60, though, which is all the previous generation supports anyway. I'm sure an AVX implementation would still be better than SSSE3, and probably less incremental work to develop once there are already SSSE3 and AVX2 implementations to upgrade/downgrade from.

Xbox Series and PS5 have AVX2.

[RanmaCanada]

Android tv boxes featuring Amlogic S905X4 chips are now available for as little as £30/$40 delivered from china. These can hardware decode AV1.

So I wonder how much longer we have to wait for Amazon to release a new fire device that can decode AV1 haha. I believe the MECOOL boxes are Google certified, so they should work with almost everything but Netflix..

[quietvoid]

FireTV Stick 4K Max:
AV1: Hardware accelerated up to 3840x2160p (4K) @60fps, 100Mbps, Main Profile Level 5.1, Color space 8-bit and 10-bit input with HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG.

Plays smoothly with Youtube 4K 60fps HDR clips on Kodi 20 Nexus.

[benwaggoner]

So I wonder how much longer we have to wait for Amazon to release a new fire device that can decode AV1 haha.
Turns out "seven months."

[quietvoid]

Well this is unfortunate. The decoder in the FireTV Stick 4K Max is not applying film grain on playback.
Has anyone checked if others supporting the Main profile do apply it?

[benwaggoner]

Well this is unfortunate. The decoder in the FireTV Stick 4K Max is not applying film grain on playback.
Has anyone checked if others supporting the Main profile do apply it?
It's not applying the FGS filter, even though the AV1 bitstream is flagged with it?

If you can get me a repro file, I can get someone to take a look.

[hajj_3]

Amlogic A311D2 supports 8K AV1 @24p/4K 60p: https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/10/21/amlogic-a311d2-arm-processor-16gb-ram/

[quietvoid]

It's not applying the FGS filter, even though the AV1 bitstream is flagged with it?

If you can get me a repro file, I can get someone to take a look.

Yes that's right. I tested it with a libaom encoded file that has film grain params in the stream, but there is only one set that is repeated for all the frames.

You can find the file here: https://mega.nz/file/wR0AmY7K#eG3IIcTbFkdUyBXn9TaOL-ImpEKDZgBOAcLEeVfJwh0

I've played it with both Kodi and https://github.com/moneytoo/Player, both of which use the hardware decoder (JustPlayer uses ExoPlayer) and result in no grain application.
While mpv for Android is in software and applies the grain.

I'll have to test with a complete grain table to see if it makes a difference.

[benwaggoner]

Yes that's right. I tested it with a libaom encoded file that has film grain params in the stream, but there is only one set that is repeated for all the frames.

You can find the file here: https://mega.nz/file/wR0AmY7K#eG3IIcTbFkdUyBXn9TaOL-ImpEKDZgBOAcLEeVfJwh0

I've played it with both Kodi and https://github.com/moneytoo/Player, both of which use the hardware decoder (JustPlayer uses ExoPlayer) and result in no grain application.
While mpv for Android is in software and applies the grain.

I'll have to test with a complete grain table to see if it makes a difference.
Thank you. It is being investigated. There was a Broadcom SDK issue (I believe fixed in the latest updates) that I know impacted some AV1 FGS decode, so it might be related to that.

[soresu]

Amlogic A311D2 supports 8K AV1 @24p/4K 60p: https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/10/21/amlogic-a311d2-arm-processor-16gb-ram/

If you read the article fully it mentions that 8K video output is not supported despite being able to decode video at that resolution.

Apparently 8K output is expected on the long awaited S908X which may be a bit beefier with A76/A55 cores instead vs A311D2's A73/A53 core configuration.

[olduser217]

Fire TV Stick 4K Max uses Broadcom SoC?
According to Wikipedia, its CPU is Mediatek MT8696.

Thank you. It is being investigated. There was a Broadcom SDK issue (I believe fixed in the latest updates) that I know impacted some AV1 FGS decode, so it might be related to that.

[quietvoid]

I'm pretty sure it's Mediatek, all the MediaCodec decoders advertised are MTK.

[benwaggoner]

If you read the article fully it mentions that 8K video output is not supported despite being able to decode video at that resolution.

Apparently 8K output is expected on the long awaited S908X which may be a bit beefier with A76/A55 cores instead vs A311D2's A73/A53 core configuration.
FWIW, it's not like 8K video is happening any year soon (no evidence yet that humans can see any difference between 4K and 8K in moving picture content). And 8K TVs typically have very advanced upsamplers in them, so it's probably better to feed native 4K to them and let the TV take it up to 8K.

[Spyros]

AMD's new mobile CPUs (with Zen 3+ and RDNA 2 architectures) support AV1 hardware decode.

https://i.imgur.com/CNkwEts.jpg

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yet their newly announced lower end 6500 series discrete GPUs lack hardware decode! :confused:

[benwaggoner]

Yet their newly announced lower end 6500 series discrete GPUs lack hardware decode! :confused:
No discreet decode hardware for anything?

That would break a lot of things, including anything with a hardware DRM requirement.

[Blue_MiSfit]

They lack AV1 decode specifically :)

Curiously they also gimped hardware AVC and HEVC encoding on these products, which didn't make any sense to me.

[benwaggoner]

They lack AV1 decode specifically :)

Curiously they also gimped hardware AVC and HEVC encoding on these products, which didn't make any sense to me.
How gimped?

[rwill]

How gimped?

I think "gimped" as in "removed".

[Blue_MiSfit]

It's not clear if the hardware encoders are still present, or restricted to 1080p..

[hajj_3]

How gimped?

i think i read that they removed h265 hardware encoding.

[benwaggoner]

It's not clear if the hardware encoders are still present, or restricted to 1080p..
Ugh.

I can kind of get why they might; HW encoders are mainly used for videoconferencing stuff in practice, where 1080p is a stretch goal. I've maybe used the HW encoders is my a6000 GPU three times ever.

[quietvoid]

7 months have passed and the FireTV Stick 4K Max still doesn't do film grain synthesis correctly on playback.
At this point I've yet to watch anything in AV1 because of this.

I also don't think it supports AV1 through Netflix yet, but I haven't been subscribed for a couple months now.

[ChaosKing]

@quietvoid I would like to test it on my firetv max. Are there publicly available samples with film grain synthesis to download anywhere? AV1 works with Kodi 20 (dev version) btw.

EDIT
Found your link https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1955516#post1955516 :)
Hmm yeah I don't see any generated noise in Kodi.

EDIT2
Looks correct in VLC, but not sure if HW accelerated...

[Spyros]

Beyond the core, the Ryzen 7000 Series Processors feature an all-new 6nm I/O die, which enables hardware-accelerated video encode/decode*, light-duty graphics work and multi-display support.

* Video codec acceleration (including at least the HEVC (H.265), H.264, VP9, and AV1 codecs) is subject to and not operable without inclusion/installation of compatible media players.

Press Release (https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1089/amdlaunches-ryzen-7000-series-desktop-processors-with)

[ChaosKing]

7 months have passed and the FireTV Stick 4K Max still doesn't do film grain synthesis correctly on playback.
At this point I've yet to watch anything in AV1 because of this.

I also don't think it supports AV1 through Netflix yet, but I haven't been subscribed for a couple months now.

I just updated my FireTV Stick Max and now I can see the generated grain by the av1 decoder in Kodi. It finally works!

When I hit pause in Kodi the grain still "moves" lol
I use Kodi 19 dev btw.

[quietvoid]

I just updated my FireTV Stick Max and now I can see the generated grain by the av1 decoder in Kodi. It finally works!

When I hit pause in Kodi the grain still "moves" lol
I use Kodi 19 dev btw.

Very cool, I just tested and it also works on my side. :thanks:

[Beelzebubu]

When I hit pause in Kodi the grain still "moves" lol

That sounds rather weird. Certainly not quite what you'd expect given how grain works in the spec...

[benwaggoner]

That sounds rather weird. Certainly not quite what you'd expect given how grain works in the spec...
Sounds like the FGS filter keeps running even when the video stops. Since it's an out-of-loop postprocessor, that sort of thing isn't unprecedented. In the implementations I'm aware of, the FGS filter isn't even part of the codec itself, and can be triggered by the same SEI metadata in other codecs as well.

[Beelzebubu]

Sounds like the FGS filter keeps running even when the video stops. Since it's an out-of-loop postprocessor, that sort of thing isn't unprecedented. In the implementations I'm aware of, the FGS filter isn't even part of the codec itself, and can be triggered by the same SEI metadata in other codecs as well.

True, except that the process is defined and the seed coded in the bitstream header. So if the seed is static (e.g. when paused, or because so coded), the grain looks the same every frame. So the above behaviour suggests the seed is changing even if the video is paused. Where does it get the new seeds from? And if from someplace else than the bitstream header, does that mean it looks anything like intended by the encoder?

(It's true that encoders like aomenc don't choose a specific seed based on reconstruction characteristics, they just randomly generate a number. But in theory, an encoder could select a seed expecting a particular reconstruction, and that's what I'd expect to see in the decoder as well then.)

[ChaosKing]

True, except that the process is defined and the seed coded in the bitstream header. So if the seed is static (e.g. when paused, or because so coded), the grain looks the same every frame. So the above behaviour suggests the seed is changing even if the video is paused. Where does it get the new seeds from? And if from someplace else than the bitstream header, does that mean it looks anything like intended by the encoder?



I see what you mean. Basically the video stream and the grain stream are "out of sync" now.
Not sure who to blame here. The fire stick decoder or Kodi.

[benwaggoner]

True, except that the process is defined and the seed coded in the bitstream header. So if the seed is static (e.g. when paused, or because so coded), the grain looks the same every frame. So the above behaviour suggests the seed is changing even if the video is paused. Where does it get the new seeds from? And if from someplace else than the bitstream header, does that mean it looks anything like intended by the encoder?

(It's true that encoders like aomenc don't choose a specific seed based on reconstruction characteristics, they just randomly generate a number. But in theory, an encoder could select a seed expecting a particular reconstruction, and that's what I'd expect to see in the decoder as well then.)
Good points. Perhaps it is looping, or falls back to randomizing a seed if the seed remains the same for too many frames?

[quietvoid]

FWIW sometimes pausing has dancing grain, sometimes it doesn't.

[benwaggoner]

FWIW sometimes pausing has dancing grain, sometimes it doesn't.
Weird. Latest system update installed and everything?

What model number Fire Stick?

[quietvoid]

Weird. Latest system update installed and everything?

What model number Fire Stick?

Yea, however it's not consistently reproducible. I managed to do it after 10+ attempts just now.
Sometimes there's also a frame skip after pause. I use Kodi but it makes use of MediaCodec.

This is the 4K Max, OS is 7.2.9.2 (PS7292/2984).
I'm not sure what other model number there is, other than the serial number.

[ChaosKing]

Yea, however it's not consistently reproducible. I managed to do it after 10+ attempts just now.
Sometimes there's also a frame skip after pause. I use Kodi but it makes use of MediaCodec.

This is the 4K Max, OS is 7.2.9.2 (PS7292/2984).
I'm not sure what other model number there is, other than the serial number.

Dancing grain is gone with the latest Kodi 20 beta.

[quietvoid]

Dancing grain is gone with the latest Kodi 20 beta.

The build I have installed is from 2022-09-10 git, which was after the last tagged alpha.
So unless it was fixed in git in the last 10 days, it still happens even if rarely.

[benwaggoner]

Dancing grain is gone with the latest Kodi 20 beta.
Good to know!

But odd. Maybe Kodi was doing its own SW AV1 decode or something?

[hajj_3]

a new 'chromecast with google tv' has been released which uses the S805X2 chipset which can hardware decode av1. The chipset can only output 1080p not 4k, for all codecs not just AV1. Google's cast codec support page (https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/media) doesn't show this new model so not sure if AV1 decoding is enabled or not but the hardware should be capable of it.

[hajj_3]

Nvidia 4000 RTX series supports AV1 hardware encoding up to 8k60p: https://www.neowin.net/news/nvidia-rtx-4090-4080-will-soon-be-able-to-stream-av1-on-microsoft-edge-google-chrome/

[Yups]

Nvidia 4000 RTX series supports AV1 hardware encoding up to 8k60p: https://www.neowin.net/news/nvidia-rtx-4090-4080-will-soon-be-able-to-stream-av1-on-microsoft-edge-google-chrome/


8k60 is not perfect but they might improve it with newer drivers.



The 8K results have some surprises in store because the RTX 4090 which even has a dual AV1 engine drops as much as the Ampere card regarding P1. Something seems to be wrong with the driver. The AMD card even drops related to the average frame rates. The frame rate suffers from strong stuttering as the 1% percentile is barely more than one FPS.
https://www.capframex.com/tests/AV1%20Video%20Decoding%20Intel%20Arc%20A770

[benwaggoner]

Nvidia 4000 RTX series supports AV1 hardware encoding up to 8k60p: https://www.neowin.net/news/nvidia-rtx-4090-4080-will-soon-be-able-to-stream-av1-on-microsoft-edge-google-chrome/
Even if unfixed, that's unlikely to be a serious limitation in this time frame. The global media industry is pretty darn committed to 4Kp24 for scripted entertainment. 4K because costs go up rapidly with more pixels, and the visual benefit of >4K for scripted entertainment is far from demonstrated. Lots of big feature films still do most or all of their CGI effects at 2K. And the commitment to 24p for the "film look" is almost religious. And at 24p, the default shutter speed is 1/48th sec, so almost any motion of camera or content introduces enough motion blur to eliminate any theoretical extra detail 8K could offer.

Live sports is much more interested in high frame rates, so I expect 4Kp120 to be a much bigger deal than 8Kp60 over the next 5+ years.

[nevcairiel]

I would take "dual engines" more like "can work on two streams at the same time without performance loss", not necessarily "twice as fast on one stream", so I wouldn't automatically say its a clear bug, unless NVIDIA has specifically stated otherwise.

Also while of course relevant because its used on eg. YouTube, in my experience browsers are not the best choice to fully explore hardware capabilities.
Not sure if thats the test methodolgy (like not excluding the first second of startup glitches), but not even able to produce fully fluid 4K 60 fps is either a software or a testing failure, because a dedicated video player certainly can render 4k 60 fps without any frame drops.

[Yups]

I would take "dual engines" more like "can work on two streams at the same time without performance loss", not necessarily "twice as fast on one stream", so I wouldn't automatically say its a clear bug, unless NVIDIA has specifically stated otherwise.



Exactly, on my Arc A380 and also my Iris Xe only one of the two decoder is working in this video. The second decoder won't give extra performance on a single video, obviously same for RTX 4090.


https://abload.de/thumb/decodingxncc1.jpg (https://abload.de/image.php?img=decodingxncc1.jpg)

[Spyros]

This is the first Snapdragon chip to include support for AV1, a royalty-free video codec backed by a huge list of heavy-hitters like Amazon, Apple, Arm, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia, and Samsung. Netflix and YouTube have gone all-in on AV1 by making support for the codec mandatory for hardware manufacturers seeking to license these services.

Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/the-snapdragon-8-gen-2-brings-wi-fi-7-sticks-with-some-32-bit-support/)


Qualcomm also finally enabled AV1 video decoding – streams up to 8K at 60fps (with HDR) are supported.

GSMArena (https://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_8_gen_2_unveiled_faster_more_efficient_has_ray_tracing_and_wifi_7-news-56532.php)


Finally!

[Gravitator]

https://s4.gifyu.com/images/gif-aplodismenti.gif

[Beelzebubu]

The interesting part is their "statement": https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/AOM-Statement.pdf

“Qualcomm is a leader in foundational video compression technology. For over 20 years, we
have invented technology widely used in video codecs implemented and used by devices and content
services. Our patent portfolio is used in multiple codecs and includes standard essential patents to
H.265/HEVC, H.266/VVC, and MPEG-5/EVC video coding standards, as well as the proprietary VP9 and
AV1 video codecs.
Regarding the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) Patent License 1.0, Qualcomm has not accepted the
unilateral terms asserted by AOM with respect to Qualcomm’s intellectual property and has notified
AOM of this position. Qualcomm reserves all its intellectual property rights, including with respect to
the use of any of Qualcomm’s patented technology to implement any AOM specification.”

[soresu]

Sounds like a coded excuse for being the near last to the party while promoting their own proprietary stuff that will never take off (aka EVC).

Also sounds like they are using this as a pretext to support the AV1 patent pool SisVel - how slimy of them.

[hajj_3]

Sounds like a coded excuse for being the near last to the party while promoting their own proprietary stuff that will never take off (aka EVC).

Also sounds like they are using this as a pretext to support the AV1 patent pool SisVel - how slimy of them.

They are not currently listed as a patent owner on the sisvel website. I wonder whether they will join sisvel and list their patents on there.

[benwaggoner]

Sounds like a coded excuse for being the near last to the party while promoting their own proprietary stuff that will never take off (aka EVC).
Are they (or anyone) actively promoting EVC? I haven't heard anything about any sorts of real-world EVC deployment plans all year.

EVC has an interesting model and promising elements, but no one seems to be promoting it for anything.

[tormento]

Microsoft Adds Direct3D 12 Powered AV1 Video Encoding To Mesa (https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-D3D12-AV1-Mesa)

[quietvoid]

Turns out that while Amazon fixed film grain synthesis on the FireTV Stick 4K Max, it still doesn't work in Dolby Vision mode.
So now SDR, HDR10 are fine but not AV1 Dolby Vision.

[Blue_MiSfit]

They're streaming AV1 Dolby Vision? Interesting! Ben, is that accurate? :)

[quietvoid]

They're streaming AV1 Dolby Vision? Interesting! Ben, is that accurate? :)

No one is streaming AV1 Dolby Vision just yet..
But the files can be made and they play in Dolby Vision on the devices I tested.

Just annoying that FGS isn't working. It works on my LG C2.

[benwaggoner]

No one is streaming AV1 Dolby Vision just yet..
But the files can be made and they play in Dolby Vision on the devices I tested.

Just annoying that FGS isn't working. It works on my LG C2.
AV1 without FGS really isn't that much better than HEVC Main10.

Dolby isn't really supporting AV1 (they've got control over a whole lot of VVC licensing), so trying to get end-to-end AV1 working for Profile 5 or something without Dolby's help would be some serious upstream swimming. The dynamic range adjusting Y'CtCp native encoding requires some encoder tuning for optimum results.

Doing a Profile 8.1 style HDR10-with-metadata would be a lot more straightforward, as no encoder work would be required, or even helpful.

[quietvoid]

AV1 without FGS really isn't that much better than HEVC Main10.
Hence why it's annoying that the feature isn't working on my FireTV Stick 4K Max.

It's a bit hard to believe that Dolby went through the effort to make it work on 2021+ devices but that they don't plan on supporting AV1.
It's probably bound to happen eventually, but maybe VVC is higher priority.

Guess time will tell.

[benwaggoner]

Hence why it's annoying that the feature isn't working on my FireTV Stick 4K Max.

It's a bit hard to believe that Dolby went through the effort to make it work on 2021+ devices but that they don't plan on supporting AV1.
It's probably bound to happen eventually, but maybe VVC is higher priority.
Dolby will make licensing revenue with VVC, and VVC is technically superior to AV1, so I can see lots of reasons they'd prefer to skip over AV1.

But we will see. IBC shall reveal much.

[hajj_3]

iphone 15 has an AV1 hardware decoder:

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/20051/383650156_575px.jpg

[birdie]

iphone 15 has an AV1 hardware decoder:



And weirdly no VVC decoder. Apple is one of the patent holders for it.

[benwaggoner]

And weirdly no VVC decoder. Apple is one of the patent holders for it.
VVC is still a lot newer. We'll see some living room devices with HW decoders this year, but I don't know about any mobile until 2024.

[Blue_MiSfit]

I was pleasantly surprised to see this! Too bad it's decode-only, but that's enough to dramatically move the landscape forward, especially considering they'll probably have to add a software decode fallback to all their devices

[ksec]

The interesting part is that Apple are following the same route as Qualcomm, in that AV1 will be decoding only.

Considering the A17 Pro Silicon design needs to be ready by mid 2022, And the hardware verification and testing kit for VVC were barely out so it shouldn't be surprising they dont come with it.

Next year, Apple will likely have a new updated A17 on a newer 3nm node with A18 on a newer 3nm as well. We could expect some Video Encoding and Decoding Engine update then.

[hajj_3]

The interesting part is that Apple are following the same route as Qualcomm, in that AV1 will be decoding only.

there's no point in AV1 encode. It won't be much better than the h265 encoder but will take up die space.

[Emulgator]

And such encoding will eat battery to an extent that mobile devices won't afford.

[ksec]

there's no point in AV1 encode. It won't be much better than the h265 encoder but will take up die space.

Well yes but I cant say that out loud since this is an AV1 section.

[birdie]

Google's Tensor G3 SoC is rumored to support AV1 encode at up to 4K at 30fps.

We'll find out soon enough.

[hajj_3]

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd generation) was announced today, it supports AV1 decoding. It is out on October 18th in uk, not sure about other countries.

[quietvoid]

Dolby will make licensing revenue with VVC, and VVC is technically superior to AV1, so I can see lots of reasons they'd prefer to skip over AV1.
Dolby recently re-added AV1 profiles in their public spec, so it's not dead yet.

Also, I've received my new FireTV Stick 4K Max 2nd gen (2023) and it still has no FGS with AV1 in Dolby Vision mode.
Still works fine in HDR10.

[benwaggoner]

Dolby recently re-added AV1 profiles in their public spec, so it's not dead yet.

Also, I've received my new FireTV Stick 4K Max 2nd gen (2023) and it still has no FGS with AV1 in Dolby Vision mode.
Still works fine in HDR10.
DoVi Profile 5 takes a lot more compute/pixel than HDR-10; max fps has typically been half (still better than dual-layer). It wouldn't be entirely surprising if there wasn't enough GPU compute left for FGS.

Just speculation on my part; I have now direct knowledge. There haven't been AV1 DoVi test streams, so it just may have never been turned on in SoC OEM drivers. The default is to no turn on features you can't test, for obvious reasons.

[quietvoid]

Just speculation on my part; I have now direct knowledge. There haven't been AV1 DoVi test streams, so it just may have never been turned on in SoC OEM drivers. The default is to no turn on features you can't test, for obvious reasons.

I would assume it probably has more to do with missing AV1 Dolby Vision streams, but if vendors could implement it I assume they had access to some.
Or maybe just regular non-FGS streams, I don't know.

Anyways, it might take a while for it to be fixed since nobody is distributing it.

[ChaosKing]

Dolby recently re-added AV1 profiles in their public spec, so it's not dead yet.

Also, I've received my new FireTV Stick 4K Max 2nd gen (2023) and it still has no FGS with AV1 in Dolby Vision mode.
Still works fine in HDR10.

Film Grain Synthesis works in FireTV Max V1. I have tested this in Kodi with different video files.

[quietvoid]

Film Grain Synthesis works in FireTV Max V1. I have tested this in Kodi with different video files.

Yes, I know.
I'm talking specifically about AV1 Dolby Vision videos, FGS doesn't work with those only.

[ChaosKing]

Yes, I know.
I'm talking specifically about AV1 Dolby Vision videos, FGS doesn't work with those only.

Is there a video online which I could test?

[quietvoid]

Is there a video online which I could test?

Sure, here's one: https://0x0.st/HWpI.mp4

[ChaosKing]

Sure, here's one: https://0x0.st/HWpI.mp4

Thx. Indeed no grain. But it works with Chromecast 4K [the white stick](not 100% realtime playback)

[oibaf]

Apple M3 adds AV1 hardware decoder: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/10/apple-unveils-m3-m3-pro-and-m3-max-the-most-advanced-chips-for-a-personal-computer/

[oibaf]

Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake officially launched, Intel's first processor family with AV1 hardware encoder.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/core-ultra-client-computing-news-1.html

Already posted at: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1995071#post1995071

[Spyros]

Apple introduces M4 chip (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/05/apple-introduces-m4-chip/)

Since all M3 variants were used only on Mac devices, the new chip "brings hardware acceleration for AV1 to iPad for the first time".

[hajj_3]

Google TV Streamer has been announced for $100, chromecast devices have been discontinued until existing stock has been sold.

https://blog.google/products/google-nest/google-tv-streamer/

It uses a 3yr old Mediatek MT8696 chip which supports AV1 decoding.

[hajj_3]

AMD RX 9000 series (RDNA 4) announced:

https://cdn.neowin.com/news/images/uploaded/2025/02/1740746920_4c963f90e26e481bbcd7dee38af4ed31wlsupms7lfcpuoy6-3.jpg

[Z2697]

And FFmpeg finally have "standalone" amf decoders and hwcontext, like cuvid and qsv have had for years.

[jfcarbel]

Wonder if RDNA3 like 7800 XT will get any benefits from the RDNA4 launch software. Perhaps making some improvements across both.

As 7800 XT owner I sure hope. I know its much faster on RDNA4 due to full AVX512, but hoping that PQ across both platforms benefit.

[Z2697]

GPUs have AVX512?

[jfcarbel]

GPUs have AVX512?

Now that you mention it I think I was thinking Zen 4 architecture, but don't see why a GPU could not support that instruction set.

[benwaggoner]

Now that you mention it I think I was thinking Zen 4 architecture, but don't see why a GPU could not support that instruction set.
GPUs are pretty much massively parallel SIMD units. But AVX512 inherits some x86-isms that aren't really perfectly matched.

[Spyros]

The newly announced Snapdragon X2 Plus supports (https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/images/company/news-media/media-center/press-kits/ces-2026/documents/ProductBrief_SnapdragonX2Plus.pdf):


AV1 decode: 8K at 60 fps
AV1 encode: 8K UHD at 15 fps, 4K UHD at 60 fps


Snapdragon X Plus (September 2024) supported (https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/Snapdragon-X-Plus-8-Core-Product-Brief.pdf):

AV1 decode: 4K at 30 fps, 10-bit
AV1 encode: 4K UHD at 30 fps, 8-bit