Yes. If you don’t have hardware that supports AV1 decode, it gets sent to the CPU instead.
For homelab stuff, the responsibility falls on the server to transcode the media to whichever format the client device requests.
That usually means being able to have ~2 simultaneous AV1 streams and maxing out the CPU.
Solid bitrate? I used 400 kb/s AV1 constant bitrate for HD anime, 750 for HD realfilm, results in 300 MB and 500 MB files for 2 hours video, no artifacts. Why does Handbrake default to 6000 kb/s?
Literally the only thing missing is full migration to H265 or AV1 with a solid bitrate.
It’s still a bit inconsistent due to hardware acceleration capabilities and final file size targets.
Most torrents are too compressed or too huge.
Luckily bandwidth and storage is cheaper than ever, so going for full size quality rips is viable for many.
My I present https://trash-guides.info/
Once Intel ARC cards are supported natively in UnRaid, I’ll be transcoding everything to AV1.
Hardware encoding for AV1 is really all that has been missing for it to be widely used for homelab setups.
To someone not knowing anything, how big a deal is the difference?
Super oversimplified, but take an imaginary 1GB video file and it will compress roughly to the size below with minimal visual degradation.
H.264 -> H.265 -> AV1
1GB -> 600MB -> 350MB
Thanks!
Is it (more) cpu expensive to decode the AV1?
Yes. If you don’t have hardware that supports AV1 decode, it gets sent to the CPU instead.
For homelab stuff, the responsibility falls on the server to transcode the media to whichever format the client device requests. That usually means being able to have ~2 simultaneous AV1 streams and maxing out the CPU.
With hardware decode, you could have 10+ streams.
Solid bitrate? I used 400 kb/s AV1 constant bitrate for HD anime, 750 for HD realfilm, results in 300 MB and 500 MB files for 2 hours video, no artifacts. Why does Handbrake default to 6000 kb/s?