Apple joins Alliance for Open Media, signaling support for AV1 video

Perhaps looking to get around licensing issues with H.265/HEVC, Apple has silently become a founding member of the Alliance for Open Media, a group working on a new video compression format known as AV1.

The Alliance added Apple to its website on Wednesday, according to CNET. Other founding members include Amazon, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, and Nvidia — among lower-level partners are Adobe, AMD, Hulu, and VLC maker VideoLAN.

Until now Apple has been a major holdout, opting for H.264 and H.265 across its platforms. That decision has made it beholden to patent holders wanting royalty payments, however, whereas AV1 could potentially be free of those obligations.

AV1 is also said to offer better compression, shrinking filesizes by 25 to 35 percent versus H.265 and Google's VP9.

Indeed Apple's interest may stem as much from the evolution of video as avoiding royalties. With the launch of the Apple TV 4K, the company has also begun hosting 4K video on iTunes, which can consume tremendous amounts of bandwidth and storage for both Apple and viewers. 8K video is already on the horizon, even if it's unlikely to reach most Apple devices in the near future.

15 Comments

randominternetperson 8 Years · 3101 comments

About 6 years ago

If they were added to the website yesterday, why don't I see their logo between Amlogic and Argon Design on that site? Was this retracted?

gatorguy 13 Years · 24627 comments

Oh I SO look forward to @ericthehalfbee 's reaction to Apple finally buying into the Google-led royalty-free alternative to HEVC. We've had numerous discussions in the past about this, some relatively recently....

but I expect him to avoid doing so.

jbdragon 10 Years · 2312 comments

Wait, so how did Apple become a founding Member when they were the last to sign up?

gatorguy said:

Oh I SO look forward to @ericthehalfbee 's reaction to Apple finally buying into the Google-led royalty-free alternative to HEVC. We've had numerous discussions in the past about this, some relatively recently.

Apple didn't do that!!! Google's is VP8 which went no where, and now followed by VP9. Which is what Google is using for YouTube in HD and why Apple doesn't support it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9

AV1 which is what Apple has finally signed onto is being developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) In which Amazon, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia, and now Apple have signed onto as Founding Members. Along with others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media

It's not Google-led. As for royalty-free, give it time, I'm sure someone will be suing them, maybe the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

jbdragon said:

gatorguy said:

Oh I SO look forward to @ericthehalfbee 's reaction to Apple finally buying into the Google-led royalty-free alternative to HEVC. We've had numerous discussions in the past about this, some relatively recently.

Apple didn't do that!!! Google's is VP8 which went no where, and now followed by VP9. Which is what Google is using for YouTube in HD and why Apple doesn't support it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9

AV1 which is what Apple has finally signed onto is being developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) In which Amazon, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia, and now Apple have signed onto as Founding Members. Along with others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media

It's not Google-led. As for royalty-free, give it time, I'm sure someone will be suing them, maybe the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

As I read it Google rolled their next version VP10 into AV1 and serves as basis for the codec being finalized by the Open Media Alliance.
https://www.xda-developers.com/av1-future-video-codecs-google-hevc/

So yeah Apple is buying into into Google's vision, and that's OK. The more rabid Apple fans and loudest Google-haters have more of an issue with that than Apple themselves do, so trust what Apple chooses as several of the most vocal members here would normally suggest. .