What They Say
Next TV reported that Netflix has added support for the AV1 codec to its PlayStation 4 Pro console app and is also rolling it out to some Android TVs that support AV1. The provider said that the lower bitrate requirement for AV1 means that switching to lower quality video modes to maintain a stream happens less frequently. On some sets, moving to AV1 reduces the frequency of drop backs in quality by as much as 38%.
Roku is said to be resisting a move to AV1 because of the higher hardware requirements. The issue of AV1 support is reported to be a factor in the wrangle that Roku is having with Google over YouTube.
What We Think
In digging around about this story, I found this interesting backgrounder on the AV1 codec.(BR)
The AV1 codec looks a lot better than other codecs at low bit rates as well as reducing the needed bandwidth
