Ateme survey: 40% of streaming professionals plan 2026 AV1 deployment

The streaming industry is entering a permanent multi-codec era where new standards like AV1 and VVC augment rather than replace existing infrastructure. For high-volume services, the financial tension is shifting from bandwidth costs to storage overhead as asset libraries multiply across various codec, DRM, and container permutations. To maintain margins, operators must decouple packaging from storage, shifting toward just-in-time (JIT) architectures that only assemble specific stream variants upon request. This strategy prevents the long tail of unviewed content from inflating cloud bills. Watch for whether VVC adoption, currently facing licensing headwinds at 4% production deployment, gains momentum as JIT tools lower the barrier to entry for new formats.

The transition toward AV1 has reached a critical tipping point following Apple's addition of hardware support in its iPhone 15 Pro and M3-series processors, which filled the final major gap in the device ecosystem. Per StreamingMediaBlog (March 2026), AV1's current production footprint stands at 17%, but planned deployments are expected to bring its combined reach to 57% by the end of 2026. This growth is largely driven by the codec’s royalty-free status and superior film grain synthesis, which Ateme CTO Mickaël Raulet noted can provide up to 15% better bitrate efficiency over HEVC.

In the cloud DVR and VOD segment, many operators are re-evaluating legacy architectures due to vendor consolidation and the lack of innovation in static storage platforms. According to a May 2026 Ateme case study, some legacy systems were previously forced to record in oversized three-to-four-hour windows for 15-minute programs to stay within asset database limits, resulting in a 2:1 ratio of stored data to requested content. Modern cloud-native platforms like NEA Genesis address this by using granular DASH segments and independent scaling for ingest, storage, and egress.

While the delivery side continues to push for AV1, the broader codec landscape is becoming increasingly specialized. Per industry reporting in January 2026, while AV1 is the preferred standard for high-volume OTT, HEVC and VVC maintain dominance in regulated and broadcast environments. Looking ahead, Next-Generation Video Codecs (NGVC) are already incorporating neural prediction models and AI-driven rate-distortion optimization, suggesting that the next wave of storage complexity will likely be driven by machine-learning-based compression frameworks.