In 2020, Intel amonh the first to deliver AV1 hardware decoding with their Xe-LP GPUs. Version 1.0 of its fast open source scalable video technology AV1 encoder and decoder for CPUs was launched this week.

Intel has done a lot to promote the AV1 codec and make it more available to manufacturers/content producers and end users as a founding member of the Alliance for Open Media. The open source AV1 video codec is intended for ultra high definition resolutions, broad color gamut upgrades, and high dynamic range advancements. In 2018, AOMedia claimed that its AV1 video codec was 30% more efficient than existing codecs such as H.265/HEVC.

However, the issue with very efficient codecs is that they are quite expensive in terms of hardware resources and frequently require hardware acceleration to function correctly. Meanwhile, newer CPUs offer a plethora of additional capabilities and instructions that may be used to decode and encode, which is exactly what SVT-AV1 accomplishes.

SVT-AV1 is a scalable, standards-independent encoder/decoder library that can take use of contemporary CPU multi-core architectures and AVX2 instructions. SVT-AV1 additionally improves the AVX2 instructions for improved speed, image quality, faster decoding at more preset levels, and S-frame compatibility.

SVT-AV1 libraries from Intel are supported on current x86 PCs (5th generation Intel Core "Broadwell" or above) running MacOS, Linux, and Windows. The SVT-AV1 project was first launched by Intel and Netflix to create a high-quality AV1 encoder with performance levels suitable for a wide range of applications, including video-on-demand and live stream encoding/transcoding.