[riolu]

Why? It's the successor to h264. The link in the OP is a hardware entitlement, since GPUs/CPUs now have h265 hardware encoder/decoders, so you already legally purchased rights when you bought a compatible device.

I prefer having a newer codec with superior quality/size. The only reason you wouldn't use HEVC is if your hardware lacks support, the $0.99 version is for the ability to use the codec in software. It's illegal to use it without licensing, but like most things, hard to enforce. Mostly for company compliance.

[clouddrover]

> The only reason you wouldn't use HEVC is if your hardware lacks support

No, the main problem with HEVC is that it is not licensed under royalty-free terms. In contrast, almost all commonly used internet formats and protocols are licensed under royalty-free terms so everyone is free to use and implement them without paying a licensing fee. Video has been an anomaly.

Imagine if HTML wasn't licensed under royalty-free terms. Or TCP/IP or HTTP or SMTP or any other internet format or protocol that you (probably) use every day. There's no reason why video needs to be a special case here.

Fortunately, video formats like AV1 (https://aomedia.org/) and audio formats like Opus (https://opus-codec.org/) exist for high quality, royalty-free video and audio coding.

These formats are deployed in the real world right now. YouTube, for example, makes extensive use of both. If you have a browser which supports AV1 (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, but not Safari yet), you can see if a YouTube video is playing back in AV1 by right-clicking on the video and selecting "Stats for Nerds".

[preisschild]

AV1 is an open standard and and can also be included in open source software. It has the same capabilities as HEVC, but without the patent bs. AV1 decoders/encoders are also already being included by hardware, like in the new Intel ARC cards.

[brokenmachine]

A slightly on-topic question... I have an AMD GPU that supposedly supports AV1 decoding but wouldn't work in VLC which I usually use. I googled and apparently VLC doesn't support AV1 hardware decoding.

Anyone know how I can play AV1 using hardware decoding?

[belltaco]

I used the Movies and Tv app on Windows 11 on a Nvidia GPU supporting AV1 decoding and it played it without any issues.

[clouddrover]

Firefox and Chrome will use hardware AV1 decoding on Windows when it's available.

[viktorcode]

HEVC has been supported by mobile phone hardware for years now, both encoding and decoding. And the difference with AV1 is negligible.

[brokenmachine]

Newer phones support AV1 decoding at least.

Personally I'd much rather use an open standard, and the fact it's better than HEVC doesn't hurt either.

[fomine3]

Qualcomm chips still don't support. This is a serious blocker. Side note: Qualcomm is one of the patent holder of HEVC

[clouddrover]

But now coming soon in new Qualcomm chips:

https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/entertainment/av1-open-...

[TingPing]

It's just anti-user. Use the AV1 codec, some hardware supports it.