Discord now with AV1 streaming support
The first major platform to support AV1 streaming.
We have reported on many software updates that brought AV1 video codec support for modern GPU architectures, but they are all limited to recording, not streaming. The AV1 revolution will only start once major streaming platforms finally enable this codec support globally.
As turns one of the first popular platforms does now support AV1 streaming, it’s Discord. The announcement from NVIDIA’s Gerardo Delgado (the same person who recently announced GeForce Eye Contact) confirms that the technology will enable up to 4K 60 FPS stream at 8 Mbps.
Discord uses p2p streaming so they will check if the people in your channel can view AV1, and if so use AV1. If someone joins that can't decode it, it will switch automatically to H.264 so everyoen can see.
— Gerardo Delgado (@gerdelgado) January 25, 2023
Importantly, the AV1 support for streaming will not limit viewers to this codec. As long as AV1 decoding is supported it will be streamed without transcoding to viewers. Otherwise, it will stream the video to H.264 which is supported by nearly everything released in the past 20 years.
Thus far there is no mention of AV1 support for other GPUs. As we know, AMD RDNA2+ and Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs support AV1 encoding as well, but the Discord team may be testing the waters first before deploying such features globally.
Source: Gerardo Delgado
