Support AV1 Video Encoding and Decoding

[Eccentric Locust]

AV1 has been becoming a more and more popular codec for not just streamers, but also content creators and filmmakers. Video hosting platforms, such as YouTube, are now implementing AV1 as a way to easily stream video content to audiences at lower bandwidths. Filmmakers, and especially content creators, are asking for AV1 for creating high quality content without too much compromise for file sizes and ease of use when viewing.

Having the benefit of AV1 video will help with preserving the best image quality at a much smaller and efficient file size than codecs like H.264. HEVC/H.265 is supported in Premiere Pro and it's a very nice codec. In fact, both HEVC and AV1 perform very similarly. However, it would be wonderful to have the flexibility of additional codecs that are gaining traction in modern media.

HEVC isn't supported everywhere, largely due to their licensing slowing down adoption. Meanwhile, AV1 is open source, so it would be easier to adopt without the concern for licensing; thus, making it more popular with platforms than HEVC.

Competing video editing platforms have also supported AV1 encoding and decoding for some time and I have been wanting Adobe to look into it for a while.

Overall, I highly recommend Adobe include AV1 encoding and decoding support for Premiere Pro. I strongly believe it will heavily encourage more people to create the best content with a codec that is extremely efficient as it is excellent at preserving image quality.

[Richard van den Boogaard]

I just looked at this video from 2020 where Gary explains that encoding in AV1 is the main culprit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibXKKllz4xQ

I have no idea how much work has been done to speed this up, but given that this is an open source codec, there may be very little incentive for companies to pursue this. This could be the answer to your question.

[Verlxssener]

The funniest thing is that AV1, unlike HEVC, is open source and even free... I also find the fact that it took them so long to get MKV support for the current price just **** xd

[R Neil Haugen]

How we various users look at things, and how the staff of an NLE looks at things, are going to vary. Considerably. We all see things that we think we and others could benefit from as rather important. Which is natural and normal.

For me, it's some color things, an actual crawl in the EGP, a few things like that. For others, it's better ProRes RAW or AV1 or MKV ... whatever.

For the staff, looking at the entire user base, it's a very different 'view'. They have limited resources, will always have 'relatively' limited resources compared to our want lists. So they have to prioritize.

Thee & me are not going to agree with their prioritization list. But then, we don't see the user data they see. So some things that look stupid to use are actually sensible from their viewpoint.

And yes, I'm as frustrated about that as anyone, but apparently more of a realist than many others.

As AV1 is coming up, so to speak, I would be surprised if that isn't added sometime in the next two years. MKV ... maybe not, as that is realistically far more used as an archivist's tool than an editing tool.

[Verlxssener]

But it is still ridiculous that what is easy to implement at the current monthly price since 2018 was apparently not possible... xd

[R Neil Haugen]

Hmmm ... it hasn't been a priority. I'm not sure how that seems impossible to understand.

They have immense amounts of data on the processes each of their apps is used for. And they prioritize dev work schedules according to a mix of the heaviest user parts of each app and some over-view of where the app should be going.

That means there are both hard & fast reasons for doing some things, and soft reasons for doing others. At times, the 'soft' reasons will be chosen to override the hard data, but ... hard data clearly wins most of the time.

Both you and I have things we'd like to see where the hard data isn't supporting us. IF that data changes over time, as it does, then, or ... there is a change in long-range plans, we might suddenly find our ideas included.

Every individual, and accordingly every group of individuals, will make a different set of priority lists than another. That's being Human.

[Verlxssener]

However, setting priorities does not mean withholding a simple function for 8 years :clown_face:

[R Neil Haugen]

Illogical statement.  Clearly, adding that "simple function" would require scheduling engineering time like any other function.

[Warren Heaton]

@Verlxssener 

It's not uncommon for professional video editing software to focus on mezzanine (also called optimized) formats for source footage, edit settings, and export settings.  Then the high-quality, exported file is encoded to various delivery formats with a separate application or utility that supports a needed delivery format.

While it's very convenient to have one application support every possible format, it's most important the mezzanine formats be supported.

[MyerPj]

Per what @Warren Heaton is saying. Work in ProRes, (LT or even Proxy perhaps), Export in ProRes, then simply drop that export into Shutter Encoder and create you AV1 very quickly.

https://www.shutterencoder.com/en/

[Filmorus]

Only if the codec supports the alpha channel, it can be supported. Anything that does not have alpha channel support should be thrown into the trash.

[kalamazandy]

Looking at a 4 year old video explaining that encoding in a new format is the culprit? Well, that may have been included, but AV1 can now be encoded by GPU. WebM was definitely in the same boat. If you look at which cards can encode which things, so long as you have a card within the last 2-3 years that is reasonably good, then you'll have no problem with encoding speeds. 

It's probably likely that Adobe splits things into two categories: Mass users, and professional users. Mass users are likely your youtubers and cheaper wedding/church videographers (it's suprising how many of those there are). Those are mostly going to be, on Average, using H.264 and whatever is straight out of cammera.

Professional users are going to use as original files as possible mostly, so whatever they are getting straight from the camera or an external recorder like Atomos type device. A good number of those will be ProRes, and things that aren't, like if you needed a racing style drone to get footage, will likely be H.264. 

Unless something causes the mass users to start switching to another editor because they support AV1, then the driving point will likely be if a camera manufacturer puts a hardware encoder in their camera system to capture AV1 12bit 4:2:2. I can't quite remember, but I thought it also supported 4:4:4, which is a one up on ProRes, which only offers that in 4:4:4:4. This is very annoying, because there's no point in that last 4 unless you've got alpha. 

Premiere supports H.264 10bit, BUT there are a Ton of variations involved in how things are packaged. It is fast with some, and slow with anything I've tried getting out of ffmpeg, or similar. 

Resolve, is aware that H.265 can actually be a good edit format if you have reasonably current hardware, and it is one of the options for edit proxies. Resolve may be another driving factor, because Premiere Does need to compete with them a bit. 

We would definitely switch to Resolve if we didn't use AfterEffects so often. The ability to copy and paste between them (with Some degree of success), or import AE files directly, create mogrt files when needed, speeds up just enough to make the annoyances in color workflow and needed extra hardrive space for Resolve workflows not worth it for our studio.....yet. Project success can always shift things a bit right? 

[Lateralus99]

Good point. Adobe's engineering time is being spent setting up spyware like functions so they can see everything you are working on. Great use of development resources!

[R Neil Haugen]

That's total BS, but understandable due to the clumsy wording of their legal department. Which is getting reworked. They work with too many large companies, including both broadcast and defense industries, where that sort of thing bluntly is not allowed. They just can't do it and maintain those clients.

But of course, people like to make snarky comments.

How about simply accepting that not everyone else sees your priorities as essential? That's something we all need to learn to get by in Life, comfortably. And allowing others to simply be other.

[AngeloLunch]

one day please

[R Neil Haugen]

Yes, AV1 would be good to have as an export possibility. No question about that.

[EXECdesign]

What, is it really true?
End of 2024 and still no AV1 within Adobe CC?
Please tell me I missread something...

Got tons of AV1 encoded MKVs here (hello, Adobe, MKVs won't work either).
From MKV to MP4 it's a snap - if I don't have to transcode which I have as CC still doesn't know AV1.
How do I tell the customer, that handling simple screen captures is so time consuming and therefore expensive?

The whole suite is so far behind, it's SO sad (poor performance, not using CPU/GPU propperly - if at all, see e.g. InDesign).

[MyerPj]

<<so time consuming and therefore expensive?>>

Maybe you want it that way, make more $$?

Using Shutter Encoder, drop them all into the window

Choose Function = Rewrap

Click Start Function

It all happens very quickly.

You can charge for that too. (it may even be expensive!)

🙂

[EXECdesign]

@MyerPj 

I think you're missing the point - and are wrongbin this, too.

It's not about making money or being expensive in 1st place. It's about the fact that all that work is completely unnessecary because one wouldn't need it at all, if the AV1 codec would be supported. NVIDIA supports it in hardware and all my players can play it. And I need free 3rd party software for workarounds because Adobe doesn't provide support itself. That's the point.

And your workaround advice is wrong: wrapping is only for the container (MKV to MP4). OBS and others do that, too, and it also works with simple ending renaming by hand on Windows. But that doesn't change the codec. So you still have an AV1 MP4 which Adobe still can't read. The only working solution is using Shutter or Handbrake to transcode to H.264 (or alike). And that is very time consuming. And that's the point, too.

[MyerPj]

The real point is, do we need another lousy to edit in codec. When you transcode, you'll get much better performance using something like ProRes LT or even Proxy - that's a codec made for editing. H.264 and 5 or equally not good for editing. So, I'm not for Adobe spending time on this kind of thing. But you never know.

[EXECdesign]

@MyerPjI absolutely agree with you in terms of 'real' editing.
But I just have to get a ton of screen captures in shape which is far below real editing.
And for that it's much more work transcoding everything than I could benefit.

And Proxy also doesn't work because CC can't do AV1. If it would work just for Proxy that would absolutely fit.

[Eccentric Locust]

@MyerPj

OP poster here. I wouldn't exactly dismiss AV1 as another "lousy to edit" codec. It's simply not being supported nor hardware accelerated. It is a "relatively" new technology that has a lot of great benefits to the way we create and consume content.

Transcoding to any other codec (aside from proxies) degrades the quality of your footage for the sake of better editing performance because you're compressing footage again and it's a one-way street (you can't go back).

My personal editing philosophy....no editor should have to do that unless there is no other option or they have a tool like Topaz Video AI to enhance and eliminate compression artefacts when transcoding.

We want to make amazing stuff, but also make our lives easier without compromising on quality.

There is a reason we have hardware acceleration support for H.264 and HEVC/H.265. The entire editing process becomes so much more bearable and streamlined that it's almost like editing ProRes footage when scrolling/navigating the timeline. And with the new upcoming v25 update to Premiere Pro, we now have even more hardware acceleration support for those codecs (buttery smooth editing for 10-bit 4:2:0 footage may not seem like much, but it's something!). No need for transcoding!

As long as AV1 not only gains support but also hardware acceleration, in my opinion that changes the game when it comes to editing performance and the quality of your deliverables. I mean, who doesn't want better looking videos with smaller file sizes? Saves money on storage!

If DaVinci Resolve can do it, then so can Premiere Pro. And it just might be one of those things that makes Adobe appear even more worth the investment.

But yeah, those are my two cents.

[R Neil Haugen]

"Lousy to edit" is based on the structure of the files themselves. As seen by each of us from our own view of what we need to get done.

I work for/with/teach pro colorists, who are a heck of a lot more knowledgeable in general on formats/codecs/quality-across-generations stuff than most editors.

If original media is a raw form, or ProRes, or a high-Q camera's long-GOP like some of the big Sonys, that's ok. They'll work original media. Although I know, proxies or "optimised media" in Resolve do get often invoked for that latter.

But for most of the colorists I am around, still ... any significant drone/mirrorless long-GOP media incoming on a job ... gets immediately t-coded to ProRes for grading. Period. Even if supposedly 10-bit/422. Because it's a mess to handle grading. On "heavy iron".

It isn't going to lose squat in data during the t-code, and will perform during the grade vastly better.

The deliverable is yes, often in a highly compressed format.

So ... it depends on your perception of your needs and what is "good enough". And will vary for everyone.

[Christian.Z]

Please submit a Bug report / Feature request at the Adobe User Voice: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/

[MyerPj]

Hey @Christian.Z 

We haven't used UserVoice for quite a while. The procedure now is to post to this forum, using an Idea, Bug or Discussion 'Conversation Type'. This post has "Idea" as its type, and I believe that is correct since it advocates for a new feature. Then users upvote the thread to show their interest, as of today, it has 80 upvotes. Not bad...

[MyerPj]

Can you send a file or two to google drive or somewhere similar, so I could try it. I've got webm's but no av1s.