Intel is the first GPU manufacturer to offer AV1 encoding capabilities within it Arc . graphics assortment. Thanks to YouTuber EposVox, who tested the technology on an Arc A380 graphics card, we were lucky to see the encryption in action. YouTube user discovered that AV1 is highly efficient for video streams that produce low bitrate. It has outperformed all H.264 hardware encoders, such as competitor NVIDIA’s NVENC encoder.

Intel AV1 Encoder outperforms rival NVIDIA’s NVENC H.264 video codec

Many YouTube videos that are watched daily are based on the new AV1 encoding, Especially during the last few years of development. Intel AV1 Video Codec It was initially developed by the Alliance for Open Media as an open source and royalty-free video encoding format in 2015. The format is theoretically revolutionary and free, making it more accessible for users to use online. AV1 produces lower file sizes than the H.264 format, providing much greater compression capability.

In the past several years, AV1 has been increasingly adopted in video streaming platforms and has seen more extensive use in graphics card architectures, such as the NVIDIA RTX 30 series, AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, and most recently in Intel iGPUs. Sony has also integrated the technology into the PlayStation 4 Pro gaming system.

In content creation, especially in broadcasting, AV1 has not seen full use, even with video encoding available. Current graphics engines do not offer support for AV1 encoder engines. With the help of the program, the system processor can use the AV1 codec. However, devices that can properly accelerate AV1 encoding have not been developed, with the exception of recent Intel graphics cards.

In the video above, EposVox placed the Intel AV1 encoder and tested the technology against several H.264 encoders. Testing included AMD’s AMF, Intel’s Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC, and software options available in broadcast packages, such as the OBS broadcast software.

The YouTuber used Netflix’s VMAF benchmarking tool which allows the user to analyze the video quality by scoring 0 (which is considered impossible to watch) to 100 (the best video quality imaginable). The benchmarking tool compares video quality to uncompressed video and is tested at 3.5 Mbps, 6 Mbps, and 8 Mbps.

The video used was footage from Battlefield 2042. At 3.5Mbps, Intel’s AV1 video encoder scored 83 points, while at 6Mbps, it hit 90 out of 100 points available. On the other hand, NVIDIA NVENC scored 71 points at a rate of 3.5 Mbps, but 8 Mbps scored 85 points. AMD and its AMF encoder were similar to NVIDIA’s, and Intel’s Quick Sync encoder reached 76 and 87, respectively. Intel is currently using a Quick Sync encoder on the Alder Lake platform.

Benchmark testing produced by EposVox shows that the Intel AV1 video codec has a sixteen percent increase in performance better than NVIDIA and AMD.

OBS delivered amazing results with its H.264 software-based encoder preset, x264 VerySlow. The integrated program provided 78 points at 3.5 Mbps and 88 points at 6 Mbps. However, for broadcasts, it’s not a usable format, so it’s best for broadcasters to avoid the setup altogether.

Since EposVox has educated users about streaming in general, it is noticeable that 3.5 Mbps is more accessible for viewers and a great setup when using Intel and AV1 codecs. It produces more available streaming quality while using fewer resources than competitors.

news sources: TomAnd the devices s