Support AV1 Video Encoding and Decoding

AV1 is not a priority because it's not very used at the moment.

It took years for H265 to be supported, because while the end result offered much better results than H264, it wasn't used in terms of production.

And it still really isn't as much as one would think, but smartphones manufacturers started using it so they had no choice but to implement it, given in the news industry using footage made with phones is very common.

DaVinci does implement AV1 because being at the forefront of 'new sh*t' is kind of their shtick in terms of its NLE capabilities. But we all know the ProRes Raw fiasco, which really should make any editor weary about it.

And ProRes RAW is one of the most friendly formats out there to speed up production, and it's a really problem DaVinci doesn't support it, especially for it's 'real' function. 

Everything is done by priority in something this big and complex. Everything. And they don't hire temp outside teams to write crucial internal code that could fry the whole thing. 

AV1 is simply not that heavily used, across the user base, as you might think it is. Would I like it being included? Of course, no question there.

But I also understand they have a ton of users all with different workflows, and work to the larger interests/needs. Get to smaller things as time becomes available.

I'm very familiar with that, as in my own business for many years, we also had to prioritize things. And not always to my liking even as the owner. But business decisions need be based on hard data.

Excuse me, but I believe it is not a matter of priorities. It is hard to imagine that Adobe lacks the resources or funding to hire a temporary team to implement AV1 in Premiere, even if it is just for importing videos. This appears to be an executive decision based on reasons that are not publicly known. However, it is disappointing that an open-source encoder/decoder, developed in collaboration with Adobe, has not been made available four years after its release.

Read the above comments.

Still no av1 codec for PP? 2024...

This priorities thing is something most users struggle with. But we always need to remember two things:

1. There are several million daily users of Premiere.
2. Everyone works differently. All several million of us.

For you, AV1 is important. Fir me, vastly upgraded color correction tools is the top interest. And all users have their own, unique, list of prioritized changes they want.

The devs have to sort through what things affect the most users. So it means, for instance, that at NAB the sympathize with my requests. They understand how useful the items would be.

But have to tell me that maybe a tiny percentage of their user base would also actually use those new tools.

So, realistically, my 'druthers ain't gonna be near enough to the top of the priorities list to get scheduled.

AV1 is one of many, many formats in potential use. At the moment they are clearly pouring massive effort into expanded log and raw camera capture formats in the new 25.x series shipping next week.

Probably they're busy with that at the moment. Maybe later we'll get AV1.

At least, it's not like BlackMagic's reaction to requests for ProRes RAW .... which is very testy, and roughly equates to expect a cold, cold day down "there" first.

The AV1 encoder is WAY faster than H265 and H264; there is simply no comparison. For example, I can record 4K, 240fps footage with AV1, which is impossible with H265. And if I don't want to capture every frame of the game recording, AV1 4K60fps is also lighter on the hardware, so I get more performance in my games.

What I'm trying to say is, I love Premiere and have been learning to use it, but I was wasting so much time converting everything that DaVinci Resolve became a better solution for me.

And I haven't even talked about the exporting speed. With AV1, I get 200fps+ when exporting 1440p60fps videos, while with H265, that number drops to 90-100fps.

AV1 is a game-changer, and Adobe is among the companies that created AV1. I can't understand why this feature is not coming to Premiere.

I want to offer my perspective here. I'm a content creator—not a professional video editor, just an ordinary person who decided to create a YouTube channel about games.

What I want to emphasize is that AV1 is not solely about saving space. That might be the case for professionals using advanced cameras, but for those of us who want to record gameplay, AV1 is a genuine game-changer.

That's a nicely detailed response, Warren.

What a lot of users use proxies for is simply the video section, and "we" don't tend to think about the audio of the proxy file also being part of the proxy process.

It seems logical, from a user standpoint, that when video playback is the culprit of bad playback, you would just replace the video with the 'new' proxy video image.

But for a dev, that might not be so logical, I do see your point ... huh.

Because yes, creating proxies for offline editing would need audio also. Yea, this would take "switching" options.

@R Neil Haugen 

It would be interesting to be able to ignore audio being different in a proxy file, but if the audio channels don't match then it isn't really a proxy but rather the same sound in a different configuration.  I call these pseudo-proxies.  They work for things like logging footage and transciptions, but not as placeholders for doing an audio mix.

Without matching audio channels, the audio from the Full Resolution source would have to remain online or the Sequence would have to account for both the Full Resolution audio streams and the additional pseudo-proxy streams in the different audio tracks.  With enough users requesting it, maybe we'll see some way of handling the difference in a future version of Premiere Pro.