AV1 Isn’t “Too Slow” for WebRTC Anymore—Says Visionular
Visionular compares its Aurora1 AV1 encoder against x264 (H.264) for real-time communications (RTC) and WebRTC-oriented use cases, emphasizing screen content coding (SCC) and temporal scalability. The article reports internal test results claiming large BD-rate bitrate reductions versus x264 for 1080p screen content at real-time speeds on CPU, and additional comparisons for camera content on a PC CPU and for low-resolution mobile encoding on a Snapdragon 845 versus x264 and libvpx-VP9.
Key Takeaways
- Visionular reports >80% BD-rate savings vs x264 (superfast) for 1080p screen content, while claiming ~45+ FPS on a single PC CPU core.
- Aurora1 emphasizes AV1’s built-in Screen Content Coding (SCC), positioning it as purpose-fit for conferencing, remote desktop, and other UI-heavy video.
- The encoder supports temporal scalability with a WebRTC-aligned API, aiming for smoother adaptation under bandwidth volatility (frame dropping without decode breakage).
- For camera content on a Ryzen 9 3900X (2 threads), Visionular claims >20% bitrate savings vs x264 medium while encoding >30% faster (per their test setup).
- On Snapdragon 845 at very low resolutions/bitrates, Aurora1 is positioned ahead of x264 and libvpx-VP9 in efficiency-speed tradeoffs (per internal measurements).
Why It Matters
RTC has been the last major holdout where “AV1 is great, but too slow” kept H.264 and VP8 entrenched—especially for CPU-bound endpoints and strict latency budgets. If Visionular’s numbers translate outside a vendor test harness, AV1 becomes a cost lever for conferencing and collaboration: lower bitrates mean less network pain, fewer resolution drops, and more predictable QoE at scale. The strategic meme: AV1’s real wedge may not be OTT VOD—it’s screen sharing and WebRTC, where SCC plus temporal scalability can turn bandwidth savings directly into meeting quality and platform differentiation.
Read full article at visionular.ai
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