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VideoLAN Announces dav2d as an Open-Source and Super Fast AV2 Decoder (9to5linux.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/opensource@programming.dev
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[–] 9 points 4 months ago (5 children)

widely deployed AV1 format

I'm glad they're pressing forward but I feel like I still very rarely see AV1 in the wild. Hell, I still see h264 more often than h265.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    AV1 is the preferred format for all streaming platforms now, and it's very nice to use for personal use too. h265 is really expensive so people are dropping it left and right

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    h265 is really expensive

    Do you mean, the licensing, or the implementation?

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    The licensing.

    Legally risky, too.

    Unfortunately its implementation is spread through tons of hardware. Even my camera uses h265 for stills, as HEIF files, whereas not a single one I know of will do AVIFs or AV1 video (which is complex to implement as an ASIC).

    One could say h265 takes the “easy” way to encode video, whereas AV1 (and presumably AV2) have to go out of their way and pursue complex alternatives to avoid patents.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I wouldn't say AV1 is really settled as royalty-free. Patent trolls have bullied all the major streamers into paying the same for AV1 the same as H265, and are already prepping to do the same for AV2.

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    • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    From Q&A in git repo:

    Is dav2d a recursive acronym?
    Yes, but it is less funny than dav1d :(, except in French ("deux-vid")

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    [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I could read and say david. What about this one? Davtwod doesn't really roll from the tongue…

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    • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    What about some generic GPU decode?

    Like: https://aomedia.googlesource.com/av1-xbox-one/

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "They also want to improve threading, accelerate dav2d for less common architectures, such as PPC, SSE2, RISC-V, or AVX-512, improve the C code base with various tweaks, use more GPU decoding when possible, provide a usable API for devs to integrate dav2d into their projects, and port dav2d to most platforms."

    It's in the plans (Step 15) but not forgotten.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    It’s the last step, though.

    I’m not making demands of free software; all of that development is appreciated.

    But it does seem to be CPU-first, like dav1d and previous efforts. And I know from previous projects, GPUs have many constraints that make offloading a CPU-centric project difficult, unless it’s the #1 priority from the start.

    I’m just saying it’d be interesting another AV2 project that shot for pure, or as-pure-as-possible, GPU shader decoding. It would make AV2 a whole lot more accessible than CPU-centric decoding.

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