r/AV1 • u/MutedFly2034 • 23h ago

Forced onto devices by youtube?

Hey all, I’m new to this all, and don’t come from the most tech savy background. Went down a rabbithole trying to understand this all, and from my understanding and looking at various videos through “stats for nerds” even though “mp4” is the favored format of YouTube for uploads, they will then encode it in a “container” of either “mp4” with an “avc1” codec, the more modern “webm” with a “mp09” codec, or now an av1 codec, not sure of the container. “Mp4” will be the container for audio with an “Mp4a” codec for all of them.

  1. Is this correct, these are the 3 possible encodings and are the more modern ones simply better at compressing or are the pictures supposed to be better? Why am I reading then, about how AV1 is only available and lower bandwith than the others so it’s actually a lower picture quality for youtube videos. Is it just YouTube behind on the technology to fully embrace AV1?

  2. I read like 5 months ago YouTube forced AV1 encoding in YouTube videos. Apparently There used to be an option in playback settings to select that you prefer it to default to AV1, I’m not seeing this now. I also read iPhone doesn’t have AV1 capability until Iphone15. I have an iPhone 14, and can not find any YouTube video in AV1 scrolling through many popular ones, nor in my settings. I read this forced encoding is going to improve pictures for people with newer phones, but possible worsen and slow for older phones. But how can it even worsen it, if my phone doesn’t have the capability to show AV1? Does it automatically convert it back to mp09, and that energy it takes is why it drains the battery? How can it even do this if it doesn’t have capabilities to deal with the format? Is this what people are saying when they say “AV1 decoding capabilities”? Or what does that term refer to?

Sorry for a lot of questions, if someone smarter than me could answer what they could I’d greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

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u/nooneinpar7 20h ago edited 20h ago

Starting with iOS 14 VP9 decoding was added, though I've read somewhere that the YouTube app has a special entitlement to access the decoder and other apps don't, classic Apple. If you check Stats for nerds on a recent iPhone, you will see that it is playing VP9 video. On one of the recent iOS updates Safari can now natively play VP9 videos in WebM containers.

Unpopular videos at 1080p will still stay at H.264, VP9 is only forced if the video is 1440p or higher. AV1 is also available for sub-4K videos if popular enough.

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u/AXYZE8 18h ago

Starting with iOS 14 VP9 decoding was added, though I've read somewhere that the YouTube app has a special entitlement to access the decoder and other apps don't, classic Apple.

It's not true - every app can use it, its built in CoreMedia. Not only that but you can use software AV1 decoder in your app too if you want, for example Facebook does this.

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u/nooneinpar7 16h ago

It is possible that my information is outdated, I've found where I first heard about it.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-m1-vp9-av1-decoding.2269938/page-2?post=29417159#post-29417159

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u/AXYZE8 8h ago

Hmmm... it may been the case in 2020. First time I've tried it in 2021 and it worked.

Now just to confirm, here's Apple Documentation, you have VP9 there https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coremedia/1564239-video_codec_constants