AV2 video codec delivers 30% lower bitrate than AV1, final spec due in late 2025

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Royalty-free AV2 video codec with 30% bitrate savings 



We return to the AV2 news, the next open video codec from the Alliance for Open Media, which is nearing completion after five years of development. The specification is expected by the end of 2025, with all core tools finalized and high-level syntax work in progress. In current tests, AV2 shows around 30% lower bitrate than AV1 at the same quality.

Andrey Norkin, who works at Netflix as research scientist and co-chairs at AOM, has confirmed that recent results show a 28.63% bitrate reduction compared to AV1 in PSRN-YUV (14:1:1) results and 32.59% in VMAF, the latter stands for Video Multi-Method Assessment Fusion, which is a video quality metric developed by Netflix. 

If you expect some groundbreaking AI algorithm that does the miracle job here, it’s not that kind of codec.  The AOM group does mention possible AI extensions being used, but generally this is simply math, algorithms, and just pure creative thinking of people working on such projects. 

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