Which video codec will take over after MPEG4 AVC? HEVC and AV1 are gaining ground but VVC is effectively dead on arrival, according to Rethink Research.
MPEG2 dominated the DVD and digital-TV era before MPEG4 AVC (H.264) took over Blu-ray and early streaming. Later, HEVC (H.265) became synonymous with 4K and HDR, with AV1 emerging as a joker.
The industry is now starting to look for next-gen codecs for 4K, 8K, VR or simply to reduce bandwidth and licensing costs.
Is VVC dead on arrival?
Given the history, the obvious next step would be VVC (H.266), which is the official successor to HEVC. Released in mid-2020, it promised 4K video at half the bandwidth, but there has been almost no uptake.
- "It’s not quite right to say that VVC is dead on arrival, but it has deviated so far from historical codec adoption norms that this is essentially my view. There is no commercial pull for VVC from the market, due to the immense growth in available mobile and fixed-line bandwidth and the surge in on-device software-decoding performance. VVC will get there when it does, but no one is clamouring for it, and this has been to AV1's benefit – good news for Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia)," writes Alex Davies, Senior Analyst at Rethink Research.
Also read: New VVC video codec 41% more efficient than HEVC for 8K, study finds
AV1, developed by AOMedia and backed by Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung and others, has seen some adoption. AV1 competes with HEVC, which continues to lead and is expected to finally surpass MPEG4 AVC as the most widely used codec in 2028.
Forecast for Video codec adoption. Data/graph: Rethink ResearchFrom AV1 to AV2
The successor to AV1, AV2, is expected to be released by the end of 2025. AV2 promises efficiency gains for 4K, 8K and beyond. It is a more direct alternative to VVC.
Despite VVC's slow start, the analyst predicts AV2 will also ramp up slowly, meaning HEVC and AV1 will remain dominant for several years before next-gen codecs see widespread adoption.
The first TV devices with hardware-accelerated support for VVC and AV2 have yet to emerge.
- "I still believe there is a chance that the big streaming services could move to bespoke in-house codecs, and I do believe that the move towards AI-based video coding (leveraging on-device ‘neural’ processing units) is going to undermine the traditional block-based coding approach, however that timeline is far longer than that covered in this forecast," said Alex Davies.
- Source: Rethink Research (2)
