AV1

AV1 is the newest open, royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media. It offers better compression than H.265 with no licensing fees.

Encoding with libsvtav1 (Fastest)

# Basic AV1 encoding
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 40 \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 128k output_av1.mkv

# Higher quality
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 30 \
  -preset 8 \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 192k output_av1_hq.mkv

# Small file
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 50 \
  -preset 10 \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 64k output_av1_small.mkv

Encoding with libaom (Slow but Best Quality)

# CPU-intensive, use for archival
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libaom-av1 -crf 35 -cpu-used 0 \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 192k output_av1_aom.mkv

Encoding Speed (libsvtav1)

Preset	Speed	Best For
5-6	Fastest	Live streaming
8	Default	VOD, web delivery
10	Slowest	Archival

Comparison

Codec	Compression	Speed	Royalty	Browser Support
H.264	Baseline	Fastest	Patent pool	Universal
H.265	Good	Fast	Patent pool	Growing
VP9	Good	Medium	Free	Chrome, Firefox, Edge
AV1	Best	Slow	Free	Chrome, Firefox, Edge (modern)

AV1 for Streaming

# AV1 for web delivery
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 38 -preset 8 \
  -g 240 \
  -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 38 -svtav1-params "tune=0" \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 128k output_av1_streaming.mp4

# Adaptive bitrate with AV1
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
  -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 35 -preset 8 -b:v:0 3000k -maxrate:v:0 4500k \
  -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 40 -preset 8 -b:v:1 1500k -maxrate:v:1 2250k \
  -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 45 -preset 8 -b:v:2 800k -maxrate:v:2 1200k \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 128k \
  -f tee "[select=v:0,a:0]output_3000.mkv|[select=v:1,a:0]output_1500.mkv|[select=v:2,a:0]output_800.mkv"

AV1 with HDR

# AV1 HDR10
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 30 \
  -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -svtav1-params "hdr=1" \
  -c:a eac3_at -b:a 384k \
  output_av1_hdr.mkv

Browser Support

AV1 hardware decoding is available in Chrome 107+, Firefox 118+, Edge 107+, and Safari 16.4+ (with some limitations). Software decoding works in all modern browsers but may be CPU-intensive on older devices.