this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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Here's why it does matter
Most server hardware thats out there right now doesn't support av1 encoding, so all of those, literally tens of thousands of them in thousands of spread out data centers have to be replaced with brand new +$1,500 a pop cards that do support it before they can use it
And those servers are what process your Twitchs, your YouTubes, your Netflixs and etc services
I was gonna say, I like AV1, but my Plex server says otherwise.
I'm using a 15 year old i5 and a GTX 970, having no issues with AV1 video. Curious what hardware you're running.
Neither of those things support AV1 encoding or decoding. Curious how you’ve come to believe you’re having “no issues” with a codec your hardware has no support for.
You don't need HW acceleration to playback AV1. Maybe they watch most of their content at 720p and are software decoding and it's been good enough.
Yeah you’re going to need HW acceleration to encode AV1 on your server “without issues”.
Theres a world of difference between something that’s technically possible and something that will just work without issues of any kind. Something being “good enough” implies the existence of caveats. Mainly being that’d be a shitty experience lol.
Sure, but most people don't need encode. The start of this thread talks about encoding, but the person you replied to didn't specify. My guess is they're just talking about playback.
The person they’re replying to was talking specifically about their Plex server and how av1 causes problems with it. If their Plex server is the thing that is having trouble with AV1, then it’s encode.
Software decoding has clearly been sufficient.
Lmao
I doubt that it's doing real time transcoding in av1, probably just sending the file "as-is" to your client device and you're noticing as modern networks allow real time streaming of files with that size
My server with much newer components does like 5 fps in encoding av1
were you trying the default av1 encoder in ffmpeg? that one is unoptimized try libsvtav1 I get hundreds of fps, albeit on a 9800x3d
just the default encoder. I tried it only once and when I saw the FPS I gave up almost immediately
That one is not optimized. I get hundreds of fps with libsvtav1, give it a try
use software transcoding if thats your issue
if plex cannot work at all with AV1, it might be time to move to a non-garbage media server like jellyfin.
jellyfin is the least functional of the trinity of media servers so that’s not the best recommendation here.
Work great for me. Click button and media plays. What issues are you having?
“Click button media plays” would be the bare minimum a media server does. Being able to play media at all does not elevate it above of its position at the bottom of the media player stack.
not a wise choice but one nonetheless
Time to switch to Jellyfin.
Jellyfin somehow makes his hardware support AV1?
Yeah, it transcodes AV1 just fine. Half my stuff is in AV1 and I've never had an issue watching it on any device.
So does Plex... It transcodes AV1 just fine.
Clearly their hardware isn't powerful enough to transcode it smoothly. So they resort to codecs that play natively on their hardware
How would that help at all lol
I didn't ask for recommendations.
Damn my bad, that changes everything! My sincere apologies!
You'd probably have higher adoption rates if you jellyfans weren't so annoying.
You're right, they're the worst.
Most hardware can't decode it either which is very important. Also it's currently being sued over patents
Most hardware is only really true if you account for older hardware in circulation, most new hardware will be shipping hardware decoder support for AV1.
On top of this, the software decoder support is remarkable for AV1,
libdav1dis a marvelous piece of software, bringing access to a plethora of devices lacking hardware decoder support.My hardware is old. Has hardware decoding for old formats.
This is only really true if you have extreme throughput requirements, a regular VOD operation can get by fine on software encoding.
If you have the kind of throughput needs that warrant hardware encoders you're going to want to go ASIC anyway, so regular server hardware won't cut it. Like YouTube for example had to build their own ASICs because of the downright absurd scale they are running at