Glad this helped! Everyone should drop the developer a note with requests about features, and feedback on the slowness of AV1 (which is likely done via software lib currently), as other players like MoonPlayer can handle the AV1 decoding just fine, including latency over networks, with zero to very minimal stutter/lag, but it's the alpha/chroma masking in this app and their technique, that is likely adding to the decode/rendering bottleneck currently. I am going with software lib for decoding and how the app is structured and its rendering pipeline as part of the overall performance hit, which can also be confirmed by playing back the same videos without passthrough and the performance hit is still there, and again compared to MoonPlayers and others that have no issues with HBR or AV1 performance.
There are a few other bugs and issues with the app, but lots of room for improvements, and a lot of nice things that other app's don't have (thumbnails, previews, functioning next/prev video, etc) and best of all - this app implementing passthrough should hopefully push competitors to up their game and implement passthrough as well, which is better for everyone.
I don't have any plans to pick up the new M5 AVP anytime soon (I did order the new Dual Knit band and pick it up tomorrow from local Apple Store for a little extra comfort), but definitely curious about performance improvements others might see, and if the dedicated AV1 decoder is actually present in the M5 used in the speed-bumped AVP.
Also curious how much the extra performance bump, GPU cores, etc. plays out with the "extra 10% of rendered pixels" assuming an interpretation of that is, literally adding the 10% bump of rendered pixels as an overall increase in the overall size of the central rendered FOVeated area, that to me doesn't really translate to a hugely noticeable increase IMHO until I can see otherwise). Reason being, it's only occasionally that I ever notice the FOVeated rendering edges, primarily when watching movies with MAX screen size in front row (Apple TV immersive mode) if I have to pan my head left and right because action is occurring simultaneously or very quickly on both the far left and right edges of the screen. I rarely if ever notice it in immersive VR, especially passthrough since it's rarely rendering anything but POV where everything is occurring in the central FOVea and the background is where the FOVeated edges would appear.
Also, I never bother, nor do I intend to store large videos on the AVP itself. I only play/store these via SMB/networks shares. So it's possible having these HBR AV1 videos where it tends to choke/stutter, may perform better if playing back from local AVP storage (someone might try and confirm this for fun) - but I haven't tested that myself and don't plan on bothering, even though I have a 1TB model. Reason being, I have ZERO plans to ever start filling up the AVP with GB's worth of passthrough videos even if it does perform better, given the time suck and management issues, thats what I use a local NAS for... It will have to improve passthrough performance while pulling from SMB/network for me to consider it resolved.
Overall though, best takeaway is that this hopefully will light a fire under the ass of others to implement passthrough, since there are no more excuses, only time and talent standing in the way (or lack thereof).
