How Netflix Brings AV1 Streaming to Netflix Members’ TVs
Original post Bringing AV1 Streaming to Netflix Members’ TVs | by Netflix Technology Blog | Netflix TechBlog
Article Summary
Netflix just brought AV1 streaming to TVs, marking a major milestone for the royalty-free codec. The result? Measurably better streaming for millions of members.
Netflix's Encoding Technologies team shares how they launched AV1 on TV platforms after starting with Android in 2020. This cross-functional effort involved encoding optimization, device certification, resource management, and careful A/B testing to validate real-world improvements.
Key Takeaways
- AV1 improved quality by up to 10 VMAF for congested sessions
- 4K streaming duration increased by 5% on eligible sessions
- Noticeable quality drops reduced by 38% on some TVs
- Dynamic optimization adapts encoding recipes at shot level
- Custom certification streams stress test decoder capabilities
AV1 streaming delivers higher visual quality, more 4K playback, fewer quality drops, and 2% faster start times compared to previous codecs.
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What This Article Covers
Netflix had to figure out the best way to encode video in AV1 across thousands of titles at different resolutions and frame rates without losing the creative quality of the original content.
The Encoding Technologies team standardized on 10-bit depth encoding for all AV1 streams. They encoded at the highest source resolution and frame rate available, then used dynamic optimization to allocate bits intelligently at the shot level.
Netflix was able to encode their entire catalog efficiently while keeping visual quality high. The certification process also caught decoder capability gaps across TV manufacturers before the launch.
This page summarizes “Bringing AV1 Streaming to Netflix Members’ TVs | by Netflix Technology Blog | Netflix TechBlog” by Netflix, published Feb 5, 2020. All credit for the original work goes to the authors.
