DEEP-DIVE: INTEL ARC’S AV1 VIDEO ENCODING IS THE FUTURE OF GPU STREAMING

Imagine a world where video streaming could have significantly higher quality without using up more bandwidth—or have the same quality while having half the impact on your data caps. A world where Twitch streams aren’t a blocky mess and YouTube videos can actually resemble the visual experience of playing the game yourself.

That world is the future promised by AV1: A new, open source video codec that aims to dethrone H.264 as the primary video standard after its nearly 20 year-long reign. Typically very difficult to encode, real-time AV1 encoding is now available to consumers via Intel’s debut Arc Alchemist graphics cards (though the launch has been limited to China so far, with a U.S. release planned for later this summer).

I put Intel’s GPU encoder to the test using a custom Gunnir Arc A380 desktop card to see if it delivers the promises we’ve seen from AV1 thus far, and how it competes against the existing H.264 encoders typically used for live streaming. I also want to explain why all of this matters so much. There’s a lot to this, so let’s dig in.

A FUTURE OF OPEN MEDIA

Before H.264 became the predominant video codec everywhere, online video was a mess. I have many fond memories of my Windows 98 and Windows XP computers being plagued with all manner of video player apps from QuickTime to RealPlayer to the DivX/Xvid players of dubious legality, all to play AMVs or game trailers downloaded from eMule or LimeWire. Then once YouTube started gaining popularity, we all had to deal with) have passed and video standards aim at higher resolutions and higher framerates, demand increased for video codecs that operated with higher efficiency.