Bitmovin

The usual reasons to wait on AV1 are slower encodes and a higher price per minute. In VOD Encoder V3, AV1 and the current HEVC codec encode at the same speed, 0.38× and 0.37× real time. AV1 cost multipliers are cut 50% for managed cloud customers, which brings AV1 in line with HEVC, and HDR10 and HLG are priced the same as SDR. That leaves the codec choice to bits and picture quality. The blog has the numbers behind each change.

In Bitmovin's testing, AV1 with Per-Title Encoding needed 35% fewer bits than the current HEVC codec on sports content at the same quality. See what's in VOD Encoder V3.

An average quality score can hide frames that look far worse. In Jan Ozer's independent H.264 test, the lowest single-frame VMAF was 61.3 for Bitmovin's High Quality preset and 39.6 for the competitor cloud encoder. Do you know your worst frame?

AV1 cost multipliers are cut 50% for managed cloud customers in VOD Encoder V3, bringing AV1 in line with HEVC. Is price still deciding your codec?

In Jan Ozer's independent H.264 Per-Title test, Bitmovin's High Quality preset ranked first on VMAF and SSIM in all five content categories. See how the test was run.

More renditions don't always mean better coverage. In Jan Ozer's independent H.264 test across 15 clips, the competitor cloud encoder built 118 renditions, with 33 pairs of rungs spaced closer than Apple's HLS guidelines suggest. Bitmovin's Per-Title Encoding built 94, and its ladders took about 23% less encoded storage. Engineers can also bound rung counts, force specific resolutions and keep the lowest rungs playable on older devices. The VOD Encoder page shows Per-Title Encoding and its controls.