Google Reportedly Requiring AV1 Decode Support in New Android TV Devices
takyon writes:
Google reportedly requires new Android TV devices support AV1 video decoding
While it's clear that AV1 is gaining popularity for online streaming and media consumption, only a handful of streaming services to date encode some of their content in AV1. YouTube streams some videos encoded in AV1 on select Android TV devices, Vimeo started to encode some of the videos on its Staff Picks channel in AV1, and Netflix streams select titles in AV1 if the service's data saving mode is turned on. Google, one of the biggest proponents of AV1, recently announced its plans to use AV1 for "the whole range of Google's video applications and services".
For more widespread AV1 adoption to happen, however, there needs to be more devices with hardware to decode AV1, which is a necessity to ensure power-efficient and speedy video playback. To that end, Google is requiring that all new Android TV devices launching after March 31, 2021, support AV1 video decoding. This requirement is said to apply to all new TV products launching with Android 10 or Android 11 later this year, according to an internal slide reviewed by XDA. This slide is part of a presentation that Google held for its Android TV partners last year. Therefore, we do not know if this deadline is up-to-date, and we did not receive a response from Google when reached for comment. Shortly after the publication of this article, it was brought to our attention that Protocol's Janko Roettgers first broke this news in a newsletter dated October 29, 2020.
There's more evidence behind Google making AV1 support a requirement for all future Android TV devices. The company reportedly already requires AV1 video decoding support for all 4K HDR and 8K Android TV devices that launch with Android 10. Industry insider AndroidTV Guide points out that many recently launched 4K HDR Android TV devices ship with an AV1-compatible SoC, such as the MediaTek T30/T31/T32 or the Realtek RTD2851M. TCL's X915 8K TV, for instance, supports AV1 decoding thanks to its Realtek RTD2851M SoC combined with the RTD2893, making it one of the first TVs to support streaming 8K videos from YouTube. Since Google is already pushing high-end TVs to support AV1, it makes sense that they're soon extending this requirement to all Android TV products, which Google is able to do since it controls the Android TV platform.
"Android TV devices" includes actual TVs along with ARM set-top boxes that plug into TVs and run Android TV.
AOMedia Video 1 (AV1).
Also at Notebookcheck.
Related:
Intel Releases Open Source Encoder for AV1 Codec
YouTube and Netflix Upload AV1-Encoded Videos for Testing
Alliance for Open Media Announces Release of AOMedia Video Codec 1.0 (AV1) Specification
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