AV1 encoding is finally available to the public with integration with Intel’s new Arc Alchemist GPUs (the first GPUs with this technology). According to a new video on EposVox, This new encoder has been tested on the Arc A380 and offers incredible efficiency for low bitrate video streaming, beating out all existing H.264 hardware encoders (including Nvidia’s proven NVENC encoder). To do.
AV1 is an open-source, royalty-free video coding format developed by the Alliance for Open Media, a consortium founded in 2015. AV1 is a free, state-of-the-art codec available on the Internet for everyone. AV1 offers significantly better compression performance with up to 50% smaller file sizes compared to H.264.
AV1 has gained a lot of attention in the video streaming industry in recent years. The AV1 decoding engine is already supported by many of the latest graphics engines, including Nvidia’s RTX 30-series Ampere architecture, AMD’s RX 6000-series RDNA2 GPUs, and Intel’s latest integrated graphics GPUs. Even older game consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro support the AV1 codec.
According to EposVox, video streaming platforms such as YouTube have also widely adopted AV1 in recent years. A YouTuber says that almost half of the videos he watches every day support new codecs.
Despite AV1 adoption, AV1 encoding for content creation and video streaming is almost non-existent. Modern graphics engines do not support the AV1 encoding engine. Using software encoding and using his AV1 encoding on the CPU is definitely possible, but for some reason no one bothers to implement a hardware accelerated method of AV1 encoding. Of course, until now Intel has been the leader with Arc GPUs.
Arc A380 AV1 quality comparison
EposVox uses Intel’s new AV1 encoder for a wide range of H.264 encoders, including Intel’s own Quick Sync technology, Nvidia’s NVENC, AMD’s AMF, and software-based H.264 encoders like those found in OBS. Tested.
Tests were run at 3.5 Mbps, 6 Mbps, and 8 Mbps using Netflix’s VMAF Benchmark Tool. This tool analyzes video quality on a 0-100 scoring system (0 being unwatchable and 100 being perfect video quality — compared to uncompressed video).
AV1’s results are impressive. The new Intel encoder scored 83 points at 3.5 Mbps and 90 points at 6 Mbps. This is the best of all H.264 encoders at these bit rates. (This first example is taken from video recorded at Battlefield 2042.)
The Nvidia NVENC encoder surprisingly produced one of the lowest test results. 71 points at 3.5 Mbps and 85 points at 8 Mbps. The AMD AMF encoder scored close to his Nvidia, but Intel’s Quick Sync encoder (Alder Lake variant) scored higher with 76 and 87 points at the same bitrate. This puts Intel’s new AV1 encoder 16% better than both the Nvidia NVENC and AMD AMF encoders.
The only H.264 encoder that came close to AV1 results was OBS’s x264 VerySlow H.264 software encoder preset, which scored 78 points at 3.5 Mbps and 88 points at 6 Mbps. These results are impressive for the AV1 codec, as OBS’s VerySlow preset is resource intensive and cannot run in real time (and is therefore useless for live streaming).
More information on AV1 testing, including software acceleration AV1 testing, can be found here. Video by EposVox.
3.5 Mbps is the sweet spot for AV1 live streaming
The 3.5 Mbps result shows the biggest benefit you can get from Intel’s AV1 encoder. This encoder is so good at his 3.5 Mbps that at 6 Mbps at almost half the bitrate he was able to outperform both Nvidia and AMD encoders.
However, gains seem to diminish when bitrates exceed 6 Mbps. This is especially true for Intel’s AV1 encoder, where at 8 Mbps (Twitch limit) he only improves image quality by 2.2% over 6 Mbps.
As a result, when streaming platforms switch to AV1, we can expect significant bitrate drops. This is great for viewers, as the new encoder significantly reduces the internet bandwidth required to watch video in the same quality as H.264, putting less strain on the internet as a whole.
Overall, the results of these new AV1 codecs are very impressive. Thanks to Intel, AV1 has completely eliminated H.264 encoding, resulting in superior image quality with significantly reduced bandwidth requirements.
So far, I’ve only seen Intel’s implementation of AV1 encoding. As Nvidia and AMD implement their own AV1 encoding engine in their next-generation GPUs, we need a better understanding of AV1’s capabilities. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from H.264 hardware encoders, it’s that brands and versions can vary greatly in encoding efficiency.
Nvidia and AMD’s AV1 encoder implementations could be even more efficient and higher quality than what Intel currently offers, but we’ll have to wait until the launch of the RTX 40 and RX 7000 series. .
