New AV1 codec

Support for the AV1 codec was just introduced in Sofdec. AV1 is an open-source, royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), which aims to improve video compression and delivery on the internet.

AV1 is a great choice when developing smartphone games, as it offers a higher compression rate, and Sofdec’s special playback modes are still supported.

Here is a comparison with the other codecs available for Sofdec. For instance, AV1 can compress data 30% more than the VP9 codec while maintaining the same image quality.

As it supports Sofdec’s special video playback modes, such as alpha movies (movies with transparency), seamless concatenation of multiple videos, and simultaneous playbacks, it is easy to create rich game effects using movies.

The improved compression performance also means that video download times will be reduced by approximately 35% compared to H.264 codec movies. Reducing the time the player must wait increases the convenience of game purchases, improves the playing experience, and saves communication bandwidth.

The AV1 codec is already available for the CRIWARE plug-in for Unity (supported platforms are iOS / Android™ / Windows / macOS), and Unreal Engine 5 support is currently in the works. By using AV1, which has better compression capabilities than Unity’s standard codec (VP9), the movie data footprint will be reduced.

Sofdec comes with encoding tools and a runtime for playback, providing seamless support from data creation to embedding movies in apps and playing them.

Please note that the AV1 codec includes code subject to an OSS license. For details, please refer to the license information included in the SDK for your target platform. AV1 is provided separately from the regular package, so if it is not used, the source code subject to the OSS license will not be included.