Support AV1 Video Encoding and Decoding

Report · Oct 04, 2023

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.

Report · Oct 16, 2024

As stated over and over: this is a codec used by a relatively small subset of the several million daily users.

Apparently by their data, other things that would be used by a larger percentage of the user base, are getting higher priority.

I'm on the short list myself for a number of things that would really help me in my work. The devs are very sympathetic, but still have to say my wishes would not be used by enough users to get moved up the priority list.

That's Life. Understand, as much as anyone would wish otherwise, this codec will rise up the priority list when their data puts it higher than the half billion others on the priority list.

That actually pretty simple

Report · Oct 16, 2024

YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo, Twitch, Amazon Prime—well, basically every major streaming service already uses AV1, with great benefits for every application. But the software that sells itself as a creator's dream doesn't support it. I regret having paid for this farce, and they don't even allow me to cancel without paying an exorbitant fine.

Maybe it's too difficult for Adobe's developers. Poor fellows, they must be too busy creating AI tools that don't work at all.

With Adobe, everything is inverted. Every major streaming service supports it, three years of hardware supports it, but Premiere, the tool that is supposed to create the content to feed those streaming services, does not support it. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

We have to beg to have the basics and even have to put up with consumers who, for some reason, think that this mercenary company deserves any defense.

Seriously, guys, if you also have unanswered demands other than AV1, that's also on Adobe. There are no excuses for Premiere not to be complete software. Think about how much you pay for it, please.

It is not about priority but incompetence. They do not care about any of us. They are launching AI features just to lure curious people into subscribing to their service (and then charge a ridiculous fine if the user wants to cancel the subscription). All of this is because there is no way to crack those AI features.

Money is all they care about, if they could charge you for every AV1 export they would advertise it everywhere, they would make everyone believe that AV1 is absolutely necessary, they would even rename the software to Premiere AV1 Pro. That's it, that's their priority system. Money.

They don't care about your workflow.

Report · Oct 16, 2024

You are rather ... self-contained, perhaps? How about sitting back and thinking a spell?

First, are you that certain that every user is like you? How many Premiere users actually want to work in AV1? What percentage of the user base?

Yes, AV1 is a good deliverable format, for streaming services. Do you understand that there are normally professionally viewed differences between deliverable codecs and editing ones?

For instance, H.264/5 is a great capture codec for smaller format devices such as drones, as it allows for a massive compression of data without too much notable visual crud happening.

It is also a good deliverable format, for the same reason. Smallifies a data file remarkably. Very heavily requested as a deliverable file.

But it has notably been considered a horrible editing format/codec. Well, it's ... some better, now, with the chips in some CPUs that can do hardware decoding. Still, the majority of colorists will not grade an H.264/5 clip. They transcode to typically ProRes or a DNx variant.

Also, they would never send an H.264/5 clip out to Vfx ... just, no.

And they work normally on massive machines. In Resolve or Baselight.

AV1 is a similar format/codec. A really good deliverable for streaming. But ... requires either massive computer effort or specific hardware for attempting to use in editing.

Adobe's staffers have never said they won't add it, just that it isn't high enough on the priority list as seen by studying their user base.

While some Premiere users complain about the lack of support for AV1 in Premiere, look at Resolve.

Their staffers have made it very clear it will be a cold day "way down there!" ... before ProRes RAW is even considered in Resolve.

All organizations have to make priority lists, and like any other, Adobe's devs do so based not on whims but on hard data. Unless perhaps there are inter-corporation issues, which is not the case with AV1 in Adobe programs.

Which hard data ... you do not have. From everything I can see anywhere, you are greatly overstating the interest/need ... at this time ... for AV1.

Which like others, I'd love to have added into the app. Along with a ton of other things. They simply can't do everything at once, no matter the opinions of users. That's reality.

Report · Oct 16, 2024

Perhaps it may help if the Adobe team provide some sort of input and maybe potentially set the status of this feature request to something like "Acknowledged" at least just so that we have some form of reassurance that the folks at Adobe do in fact hear us regarding this topic.

It has been an ongoing discussion for over a year now since this feature request was made. Lots of perspectives have been expressed and it's been proven to be quite a hot topic.

I'm not sure what the prerequisites are for a feature request to be considered "Acknowledged" by Adobe, but it could help with just knowing that we are all being heard. For all I know, it could just be "luck of the draw".

I'm also with @R Neil Haugen on the AV1 codec having great benefits as well as tradeoffs, but also its place on the priority list at Adobe is rather iffy depending on the data from its user base, whether they be professionals or simply hobbyists.

Regardless, I'll still champion for the inclusion of AV1 support (at least as a deliverable codec to export to!). It's taken them quite some time for them to bring back MKV support that they removed long ago so they could be focusing on that first before AV1. But who knows how their priority list is ordered, heh.

Report · Oct 16, 2024

Oh, I'm always about getting more options. As I'm so aware we all work very, very differently from one another.

And yes, staffers have commented about this, and as an Idea post, all original posts and all comments go directly to the appropriate dev team. That's standard practice.

At NAB, I've a couple times had staffers note what some of the most requested things were ... and I gotta say, you gotta wonder about some people ... sheesh ... but this is something that would be useful.

Of course, all the changes to color tools I want would be useful too ... to me and I'm sure at least a few other users ... sigh.

Report · Oct 16, 2024

If there is no AV1 support then how would you know if the users actually want to use this codec? Without actual usecase noone would know the benefits of it. So, Adobe waiting for mass adoption of AV1 hardware codec on users system rather than giving support on app itself at first so that users appreciate this codec and upgrade their hardware. No, but it is just a waiting game and just have an excuse to postpone the stuff that is to be implemented for this hefty priced software.
I am sorry but in the world where situation of like this 'Chiken or Egg' shielding corporate with so many statements doesn't work at all. If the feature is not delivered then how would anyone have any incentive to actually use the feature that is not available or upgrade the hardware to support it. So, on everything on this digital world first this that comes is software support later comes its adoption and hardware upgrade. Adobe shouldn't be waiting for users upgrading their hardware just for uncertain feature update.

Report · Oct 16, 2024

It doesn't sound like you have ever had to make priority decisions for business lines and client options, perhaps? As the assumptions you run to don't indicate such experiences.

I have. We rarely have made any decisions on what we would "like" to do. Emotions do not pay bills. And if you cannot learn to figure out your base customer interests, along with that of subsets of clients, you won't stay in business long.

But I realize if you don't understand how a complex, data-driven organization like Adobe operates, to generate useful data for making priority lists, it would be hard to understand prioritization practices.

You may also not be aware that a very large chunk, at least a third, of corporate Adobe, is an operation to help other large corporations create, sift, and study user data for making every type of business decision.

They make the software and databases for that work also. The "Creative Cloud" apps are only one of the three main operating arms.

Business data as mentioned, Creative Cloud, and "Document Cloud" or whatever they call it, the business to business documents software and systems for contracts and such.

And this is why using a single "Adobe made X on us ..." number generated from public financial data is normally bogus. CC is only one of several nain income streams.

Report · Nov 15, 2024

There's no much discussion going, in reality.

It's 'AV1 is super efficient, Nvidia cards have hardware accelleration, streamers use it, so Adobe must add it' vs 'In terms of actual usage AV1 is not actually that useful and it's not as requested as you might think', both equally true.

Adobe will add AV1. But Premiere aims to be both a prosumer and professional platform - prosumers (which include 95% of streamers and content creators) don't use it that much yet, and professionally is nowhere to be seen aside from delivery.

Compared to ProRes RAW, where prosumers don't use it but professionally was one of the top requests.

DaVinci in terms of editing is much used by prosumers because it's free, but professionally is still very rare to see (there are some movies edited in it, but in terms of industrial usage it's still limited to its color grading funcionality).

In other words, there's a lot of entries in this discussion, but it seems clear to me it represents a very vocal minority.

Report · Nov 15, 2024

Just in case users missed it:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-beta-discussions/new-in-beta-support-for-h-264-in-mkv/m...

Report · Nov 23, 2024

As an ancient Adobe member, time with Adobe as well as an old fart on this planet, I agree 100%. Since I'm not the smartest I struggle to get 3rd party plugins to work and wonder why I even need to try?? $60 bucks a month is difficult for me and then to have to scramble to find plugins?? Will I live long enough to learn DaVinci Resolve? Why should I try? I don't know, but I should not have to. All the new bells are cute, but what about the basics? Shouldn't we be able to throw everything at Premiere and have it work? I have spent the last 4 days trying to convert giant AV! and WEBM files to ProRes. It takes forever on an old computer and always crashes before the end. Arghhhh. Please Adobe. Help. We all know you can do it better than anyone else, so please. Sigh, to be able to convert a 20 gig AV1 or WEBM to ProRes 4444 in Adobe Media encoder would greatly improve the quality of my life ... and I KNOW you can do it. Thank you.

Report · Nov 23, 2024

Hey @ricka59407662

As a fellow old dude, I understand. 🙂

Here's a free/donationware software to do that for you. I just tried one.

1) Drop the webm in, 2) select ProRes 3) Click Start Function.

Use Shutter Encoder to convert the files. And maybe try ProRes LT or even ProRes PROXY format within Shutter Encoder for easy to edit formats with 'better' files size: https://www.shutterencoder.com/en/

Report · Nov 23, 2024

Thank you. I will. Stay safe.
Rick

--

*Lean-into-GOD <>*

Report · Nov 25, 2024

I'd learn Resolve... And It's FREE to do so, then cancel your subscription
to adobe... Oh but before you do cancel make sure you uninstall pro ect
otherwise you end up with a cancerous dead 6gb+ of adobe software that is
more difficult to remove than Mcafee!

Report · Nov 25, 2024

I've worked with/for/taught pro colorists for years. So I'm in Resolve nearly as much (more in periods) than Premiere. I'm involved with discussions on a routine basis of heavy duty Resolve users and their issues and such.

You may not have spent a second thinking about why there's a free version of Resolve. That's simple.

The "free" Resolve is a limited one ... both for framesize & rate, codec support, many other things. And it's only "free" because Resolve in toto is a loss-leader provided by BlackMagic to get people into their ecosystem to buy hardware.

The cameras, ATEM units, Decklinks, recorders, all of their cool stuff. Much of it comes with a license in the box. I've got enough BM kit to have a couple spare licenses in a drawer. I don't think BlackMagic makes enough money on sales of Resolve Studio to cover the cost of their licensing system.

Resolve has awesome grading tools, and there were some upgrades in 19 to the editing page, but still ... it is well below Premiere in keyboard shortcuts, especially for general editing things. And several editing things you can do with a tool or shortcut in Premiere, you simply can't do except manually step by step in Resolve.

It getting better as an NLE over time, but it's still notably more limited than either Premiere or Avid yet.

And of course, that said, each of those three considered as an NLE has things the others could use. Even Resolve has a couple cool things in editing that Premiere and Avid could use. There's just far more the other way.

Then ... that UI in Resolve ... is so freaking limited. For example ...

In Premiere I have nine custom workspaces. In Resolve ... nada. You can set a page so that maybe it opens with X panel rather than Y, but that's about it. And I hate the Resolve UI.

But that's a personal thing of course. I've got good freinds who love the Resolve UI, and find it totally intuitive. Whatever!

After a decade of use, their arcane process of where options are hidden in menus splayed around the app still causes me no end of hunting at times for the things I don't use all the time. I have to work to remember even where you click on some pages/panels, to bring up certain menus.

So if you like it, have at it. It's got all sorts of new bugs and issues, I think on account of trying to mimic Adobe and be a one thing for all computers, media, effects, and workflows. That, to me, is inherently asking for trouble.

The notably stable apps at this time are still old-school ... you buy the system with the app on it, never ever add a program on that computer, and pay a yearly fee for the privelege of having a totally rock stable workflow.

For one task, one task only.

Report · Nov 25, 2024

@R Neil Haugen would sell me one of those keys? ☺️ I'm from Brazil and the price to buy BlackMagicDesign hardware is just impossible for me, 1 USD = 6 BRL.

Report · Nov 25, 2024

Sorry. Might need them at some point.

Report · Nov 25, 2024

@R Neil Haugen figured you might want to keep them. Thanks! Anyway, I'm analyzing the possibility of buying a key, will think about it. Thank you, though.