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.

[defaultpzj7q3kngd93]

It feels like new AI functions are added every week, but you can't integrate an AV1? Is there actually an official reason for this?

[Warren Heaton]

@defaultpzj7q3kngd93 

AV1 is supported in the public beta.

[bethuel1994]

I just checked, and you're wrong.

[Fergus H]

Hi all,

First, an apology: while I have been keeping an eye on this thread, I didn’t - until now - update the status to indicate that we’re definitely interested in customer requests regarding AV1.

By way of introduction, I’m a product manager in the video team and one of my areas of responsibility is camera & codec support. Ultimately, I’m the person who prioritizes what we work on in this area and what we don’t.

I’m interested in getting more information from people here about how they would use AV1 support. Some questions:

Do you have AV1 files that you want to be able to edit in Premiere Pro? If so, what application or device is generating the AV1 files? If you’re choosing to AV1 as the format, why do you prefer it? Size? Quality?

Do you want to be able to export AV1? If so, is that because it’s a smaller format for long term storage? Or it’s faster to upload to social media? Are you streaming AV1 files directly to your customers?

Voting for AV1 support here is useful and it’s even more useful if you can tell us how that support would help your workflow. We’ve got our own ideas but it’s always much better to hear it from you.

Thanks!

Fergus

[Gaurav25856014nf32]

What application or device is generating the AV1 files?
- For me it is OBS Studio Gameplay Local Recording with RTX 3060 GPU.

If you’re choosing to AV1 as the format, why do you prefer it? Size? Quality?

- Both

Do you want to be able to export AV1?

- After this all time of awaiting. Obviously, YES.

Is that because it’s a smaller format for long term storage? Or it’s faster to upload to social media?

- It is easy to manage due to lower storage or get better quality with simlar bitrate. It is also faster to upload to social media.

Are you streaming AV1 files directly to your customers?

- I think this question is related to people related to some media streaming companies. Since I am an individual Content Creator I don't have any idea over this. Since gamer streaming using OBS to stream over platform like Twitch doesn't have anything to do with video editing software.

Also why is MKV not have any official support to MKV since it is the format that doesn't crash when local recording on power outages prone area. Always have to remux on OBS. 

[Update from moderator: MKV support was released as part of the v25.2 release]

[R Neil Haugen]

[off-topic response deleted by moderator]

[Gaurav25856014nf32]

Just saw the release notes. Yes, finally have been using Adobe since 2017 and yes finally the day has come for official support 👏

[Raphael297215156mgc]

With all due respect, you are very late, and after reading your post, it seems you do not know much about AV1, which you should.  AV1 has many benefits beyond those you mentioned. 

Obviously it uses less storage without loosing quality, which would be reason enough to make it a priority nowadays, but thats not all:

1- Editing with AV1 files is a lot smoother (at least on Davinci Resolve Studio, wich I'm only using because you guys are FOUR YEARS late to AV1 party.)

2- Multiple encoders: Nvidia 4000 and 5000 series GPUs comes with multiple encoders, and they can work together when exporting AV1, that makes the exporting process WAY FASTER. While I export my videos at 90fps with Premiere, the same project would be rendered at 170 - 190fps on Davinci simple because they are using the dual enconder feature. 

3- While recording and streaming games the impact on performance while using AV1 is a lot lighter. Back when I was still using your OUTDATED product hoping you guys would act like a big player on the market and give support to AV1 I was forced to record my livestream using H265 while streaming with AV1, using both encoders of my GPU separated. Making me lose even more performance for no reason at all. 

4- Streaming with AV1 allowed me to upgrade the resolution of my stream, offering more quality to the viewer while using the same internet bandwidth. And after all that UNECESSARY strugle I was still forced to use UNECESSARY resources of my PC because the BIGGEST company on the editing software market are almost FIVE YEARS sitting on a BASIC thing that even the FREE VERSION of the competition is offering.

Adobe keeps selling it's products to streamers and "small" content creators, while giving ZERO atention to their needs (no, we don't want AI features that doesn't even really work and you guys keep pushing just because of the buzz around AI).

Sorry to put things like that, but if you're the one responsible for that, your should hear it. You cost me a whole year of Adobe subscription AND the value I paid on Davinci Resolve Studio AND the time I had to put into learning to use a new software.

Get a grip, Sir. 

[defaultpzj7q3kngd93]

Are you serious about why you want to use a much better codec? With OBS, I can record in AV1 and get a better picture while using less disk space. But more and more often I get AV1 files and every time I have to convert them for the leading provider.
1. an import function with conversion would have been the minimum for 4 years.
2. native editing would be much better and more up to date.

Another question: What would be the downside of supporting AV1?

[R Neil Haugen]

[off-topic response deleted by moderator]

[R Neil Haugen]

[off-topic response deleted by moderator]

[Raphael297215156mgc]

[off-topic response deleted by moderator]

[R Neil Haugen]

[off-topic response deleted by moderator]

[Fergus H]

@Raphael297215156mgc thanks for the feedback. I hear you're frustrated about the lack of AV1 support so I appreciate even more that you took the time to provide some details. The benefits you're describe are definitely ones we are aware of but your detail (particularly your 3rd point) is helpful. 

Can you provide some more information on this point? 
"Editing with AV1 files is a lot smoother" - A lot smoother than what format? Most formats that Premiere Pro supports are hardware accelerated so I'm curious to hear your experience. FYI, we recently added in beta support for the 10-bit 4:2:2 decode support that NVIDIA now provides in their Blackwell Architecture GPUs. 

Regards,

Fergus

[bethuel1994]

WHAT THIS GUY SAID ☝🏼

[Raphael297215156mgc]

@Fergus H 

I appreciate the attention, sir! What i meant by smoother is in comparison with H265 and H264 on Davinci Resolve (since it's not possible to test on Premiere). I record using OBS, MP4, around 45k bitrate for h264, 35k for h265 and 20k for AV1. Whenever I try to edit any of those recordings with compatible software is really noticeable that AV1 make the software more responsive. For example:

Editing 2h long stream -> need to go from minute 10 to minute 90 -> With AV1 is basically instant. Otherwise takes a few seconds to load. 

I'm using a RTX 4080, R7 5800X, 32GB RAM and 7gbps nvme ssd.

[R Neil Haugen]

That is a very useful post, Raphael. Enough details to be informative, succinctly stated.

[Fergus H]

@Raphael297215156mgc  Thanks for the extra info!

I suspect what you might have been seeing is the availability of hardware acceleration for H.264 and HEVC varies, based upon the bit depth and chroma subsampling of the media and whether it is also supported in the editing software. I'm not as familar with AV1 in this regard ('though I've just asked my colleages at NVIDIA for more info) but perhaps it's simpler. 

While it doesn't cover AV1, as a Resolve user, you might find this article interesting: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/what-h-264-and-h-265-hardware-decoding-is-supported-in-da.... 

Regards,

Fergus

[Lateralus99]

I would like AV1 support for the size and quality benefits. This would be for long term storage. It saves on hard drive space. I want to be able to convert my videos to av1 and export them.

[Lateralus99]

What notes? Can you link me? Are they finally adding av1 support?

[Fergus H]

@Lateralus99  "What notes? Can you link me? Are they finally adding av1 support?

To be clear, there is not AV1 support in Premiere Pro v25.2. 

Regards,

Fergus

[Eccentric Locust]

@Fergus H Thank you so much for your response! Here are my two cents on the significance of adding AV1 encoding and decoding support.

From a content delivery perspective, encoding/exporting to AV1 manages to achieve better visual quality at a smaller file size than the typical H.264 format. This makes sharing and broadcasting content easier and more efficient without compromising too much on quality. The result is less blocky artifacts and blurred details due to heavy compression and much clearer visual fidelity overall while also saving on storage.

In terms of data metrics, the image quality of a video exported to AV1 at half the bitrate of the same video exported to H.264 is about equivalent for roughly half the file size (and at times even improved image quality due to AV1's compression method). HEVC/H.265 is able to achieve similar results, however, it isn't supported everywhere...whereas AV1 is open source so it's much easier for Adobe to adopt into their ecosystem.

In real world usage, YouTube currently has the ability to broadcast video content in AV1 when the long-time standard has been Google's VP9 codec, which isn't as efficient as AV1. The benefit of AV1 for a video hosting platform such as YouTube is essentially lower bandwith video streaming. It saves resources and is cost-effective for not just enterprises, but also for the consumers streaming at home or on their mobile devices through their internet connection. However, it would work only if the video itself was rendered to AV1; otherwise, it defaults to VP9 on YouTube.

From a video broadcasting perspective, because of the lower bitrate/bandwidth needed to achieve great visual clarity without blocky artifacts during live-streaming, AV1 excels in this regard. To achieve this, broadcasters (whether they be enterprise companies or simply content creators) use a program that can support AV1 encoding, such as OBS Studio. They also use it for recording video as well, which is what I tend to use it for.

I mention live-streaming and broadcasting because in order to be able to edit those streams, video editors need an editing program that can support AV1 decoding, especially if it's hardware-accelerated. Otherwise, they would have to transcode to a different codec using something like Shutter Encoder in order to be able to import into their NLE of choice. That takes time and editors have deadlines to make.

That is why I would love for Adobe to include both AV1 video encoding and hardware-accelerated decoding support for Premiere Pro. It is simply a much better codec overall for both video acquisition and content delivery.

The bare minimum of 8-bit 4:2:0 color for AV1 would be okay with me, but it would be even more appreciated if it were to also support 10-bit 4:2:2 color for AV1 as well.

Thank you so much again for hearing us out! I'm excited and looking forward to more updates!

[R Neil Haugen]

Love your post! Well stated.

[Lateralus99]

Agreed. Great post. Thanks for taking the time to include more details. I hope they listen to us.

[welwi]

hi, is AV1 happening in premiere?
there are some devices out in the field that need av1 codec – ATM machines for instance since they run on chromium os. 
so it would be great for production if premiere can support this. 

br will