This article analyzes the state of the video codec market in 2025, detailing the slow adoption of newer codecs like AV1, VVC, and LCEVC by independent premium-content publishers, primarily due to a lack of a "killer app" equivalent to HEVC's 4K/HDR wave and evolving royalty models. It highlights the continued dominance of H.264 and HEVC, the nascent development of H.267 and AI-based codecs, and the growing impact of patent pools, such as Access Advance's new Video Distribution Patent (VDP) Pool, which aims to license HEVC, VVC, AV1, and VP9 content.
For publishers, codec choice is now tied as much to playback reach and licensing risk as to compression efficiency. The article’s core point is that AV1, VVC, and LCEVC have improved technically, but none has produced the market-wide demand that 4K/HDR created for HEVC. That matters because patent pools and lawsuits are making the cost side less predictable, while bandwidth savings are shrinking as CDN prices fall. The immediate watch item is whether Access Advance’s VDP Pool actually signs visible licensees and whether any mainstream publisher announces a real AV1, VVC, or LCEVC rollout beyond demos and ecosystem tests.
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