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5 star rating

A gem if you're looking to fast-learn how to tune AV1!

Guendalina Cobianchi

I took this course with a bunch of collegues with the goal of QUICKLY getting up to speed with AV1 tuning, having spent significant time working with x264/x2...

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I took this course with a bunch of collegues with the goal of QUICKLY getting up to speed with AV1 tuning, having spent significant time working with x264/x265, but being a total newby on liboam. This is very important for us at V-Nova to calibrate our smoking-fresh LCEVC AV1 implementation. Within 2-3 hours, I got a comprehensive view of what are the key parameters I should tweak to improve quality, with a good quality/performace trade-off, and Jan offered his precious recommendations on suggested default settings. Knowing AV1 is not very fast... he saved me hours and hours of testing time!

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Overview

The AV1 codec is a complicated technology with many unique and idiosyncratic parameters like auto-alt-ref, lag-in-frames, and tile/columns that can dramatically impact encoding time and quality, and incomplete and sometimes incorrect documentation. Those new to AV1 encoding can waste hours of research and testing and still not produce optimal quality in the lowest possible encoding time. In this course, you will learn:

  • An overview of the AV1 codec, including where AV1 plays and royalty status.

  • How the four primary AV1 codecs (FFmpeg, aomenc, SVT-AV1, and Aurora1) compare in terms of quality and encoding time.

  • The optimized command strings to use when producing AV1 video with these encoders, including the best preset for meeting your quality/encoding time targets, and how to configure key AV1 encoding parameters for optimal performance.

  • A review of the command strings used by Facebook, Netflix, and other sources to identify which encoding parameters you can ignore and which you must incorporate into your command strings to achieve optimal quality and encoding speed.

Identify the Impact of Key AV1 Encoding Parameters

To determine the optimal configuration for each encoder, we analyzed the key AV1 encoding parameters for each, encoding in multiple configurations and measuring encoding time, average quality, low-frame quality (to identify transient quality issues) and VMAF standard deviation (to measure quality consistency). This testing took weeks of time but enables you to choose the optimal configuration for your encodes in minutes.

Choose the Right Preset for Your Encoding Requirements

Presets control the quality/encoding time tradeoff for each encoder. It's tempting to just dial in the highest quality but that could increase your encoding time by 10X with minimal quality improvement. For each encoder, we present and discuss a chart like this that identifies the encoding time, average quality, and transient quality for each preset. To produce these charts, we encoded 16 test files to all presets using all encoders and compiled the results. Again, this took weeks of time to produce but allows you to choose the best preset for your needs in minutes.

Instructor(s)

Instructor

Jan Ozer

Jan is a streaming consultant and contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine, where he teaches courses on Video Quality Metrics, FFmpeg, and other topics at Streaming Media Events in New York City, Los Angeles, and London. Jan is the author of Video Encoding by the Numbers, which uses video quality metrics to direct key encoding configuration decisions and differentiate codecs and encoders, and the author of Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg in 30 Minutes or Less which is available on Amazon and other online sites.

Course curriculum

  • 1

    Meet the AV1 Codec

    • AV1_intro.mp4_crf
  • 2

    Choosing the Best AV1 Codec

    • Comparing Aomenc, Libaom, Aurora1, and SVT-AV1

    • Codec Evaluation Test Description

    • Analyzing the Test Results
  • 3

    Encoding to the AV1 Format

    • Encoding with AOMedia aomenc Standalone Encoder

    • Exploring the Quality of aomenc Command Strings from Prominent Third Parties

    • Encoding with FFmpeg/Libaom-AV1

    • Encoding with the SVT-AV1 Encoder

    • Encoding_with_visionular_Aurora1

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Efficiently produce top-quality AV1 video while saving hours of testing and experimentation.

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