[pavon]

Yes, for context the Pi 1-4 all had H264 hardware encoder/decoder support, which could comfortable encode at least 720p @ 30Hz in realtime. The die space argument makes sense for why they don't have AV1/HEVC encoding, but it does not explain why H264 was dropped. The fact that the CPU is now powerful enough to encode H264 at better quality and frame rates than the old hardware encoder is a better argument, but still a step backwards for folks who need lower power consumption or need the CPU for other things, and doesn't explain why the hardware support needed to be dropped. It really does sound like something else (like licensing) drove the decision, and this is a post-facto attempt to sell/justify that decision.

[philistine]

Encode is always a bit messier; perhaps you need a tool which is not GPU aware, maybe your needs go beyond what the encoder can do.

But dropping the hardware h.264 decoder is a horrible thing to do. H.264 might as well be the lingua franca of online videos. Think of all the kids in classrooms loading videos on Youtube now constantly hammering the CPU for decode. It's such a weird decision that it can only be caused by business issues.

[bmicraft]

Youtube today is mostly vp9 anyway, if you don't use the h246ify extension which limits you on resolution/framerate anyway on many videos

[Cyberdog]

Even on mobile? I sincerely hope when I play a YouTube video on my iPhone it's using the built-in decoder hardware rather than churning through what may as well be Google's proprietary codec on the CPU but I guess I have no way of knowing.

[kcb]

Apple has had VP9 hardware decode support for a while.

[moffkalast]

Well presumably h264/AVC is still there? The lack of HEVC just means it doesn't have an h265 encoder.