Netflix uses av1 codec to stream some titles in Android mobile app
Netflix has started deploying the av1 video codec. The company applies the new compression standard in its Android app, but for now this only applies to a number of titles.
The choice to start with the Android mobile app is related to the fact that mobile networks are sometimes unreliable and customers sometimes have limited data plans. Netflix users who want to use the av1 streams must first turn on the ‘save data’ function in the app. It is unknown which titles on Netflix use this.
Netflix’s Android app uses the open source dav1d decoder, which was released in October 2018. It was created by VideoLAN and the FFmpeg communities, and is supported by the Alliance for Open Media. Netflix says it has optimized dav1d so that it is also suitable for playing Netflix content with a color depth of 10bit.
According to Netflix, av1 offers a compression efficiency twenty percent better than a vp9 encoder, meaning the bitrate can be reduced by about twenty percent without sacrificing image quality. Vp9 is Google’s compression standard that Netflix has so far used for streaming content to mobile users. In addition, Netflix uses hevc for its 4k streams with hdr and mpeg4 AVC.
Netflix says it has started streaming av1 to its Android mobile app, but the ultimate goal is to use the standard on all platforms. When that will happen is still unknown. The company says it is also working with device and chipset manufacturers to extend support for the av1 video codec to hardware.
The Alliance for Open Media was founded in 2015 by Microsoft, Google, Intel, Mozilla, Amazon, Netflix and Nvidia with the goal of developing a better video compression method more suitable for delivering content over networks. The specification for the AV1 codec was released in March 2018. The technique is released under an open source license and can be used without having to pay royalties. Later, Apple also joined the alliance, as did Samsung. LG and Samsung will equip select 8k TVs that will be released this year with an av1 decoder to play YouTube videos in 8k.