h265/HEVC v AV1 masters fight

When it comes to VR video encoding, it does not matter which Codec you choose out of the two (HEVC or AV1) in terms of video quality. At same bitrate, both provide IDINTICAL visual quality. Period.

The ONLY advantage of AV1 is SLIGHTLY smaller file size when encoding 8K+ resolutions which is what should be used for VR Videos in this day and age.

So, even that advantage is not worth it IMHO with all the time AV1 encoding it takes vs HEVC.

And no, better Color grading for AV1 Videos doesn't mean they are better in visual quality. You can adjust the same color grade for the HEVC video, and they we'll look identical.

When I compare, I don't look for the better color, I look for the better pixel. And at same bitrate, both are identical as I said.

Sorry, this whole HEVC vs AV1 is meaningless. And if you guys want to be sure about this, just encode your own VR videos at 8K resolutions in both HEVC and AV1 at same bitrate and same color grade and you'll see NOTHING difference between the two either you look at them and zooming on a 4K PC monitor or on a high resolution VR headset.

That's what I did multiple times, and these were the end results every time.

phiber Even HEVC master vs AV1 streaming is a pointless comparison. AV1 is around 20% more efficient than HEVC at best. The HEVC master here has something like 9x the bitrate of the AV1 streaming version, so obviously it's going to be much higher quality.

VRXVR When it comes to VR video encoding, it does not matter which Codec you choose out of the two (HEVC or AV1) in terms of video quality. At same bitrate, both provide IDINTICAL visual quality. Period.

That's straight up wrong. AV1, when encoded with appropriate parameters, has better compression efficiency than HEVC and can therefore achieve higher visual quality at the same bitrate. Whether that additional quality is perceptible or not depends on a multitude of other factors.

Clearly not a question of HEVC or AV1... it's the bitrate that you provided in these last slr videos... I dont care if its AV1 or HEVC or H265... having 30 mb bitrates makes the video less smooth... if your testing people dont see that, then they dont watch videos when they test. Or they dont wanna see because you want to profit from selling high bitrate videos... If you dont make an acceptable choice of bitrate (at least 60mb) to run the video smoothly, then your videos will lack image quality and smooth thats so important in VR. If you follow this way of having only 30 mb bitrate of your videos company, I will GTFO (term and suggestion kindly used on other post) when my subscription is over as I see no point of being here if you dont provide the best quality has you always did in the past.

Playing AV1 files maxes out the thermals on my (mobile) 3080 and CPU, while the HEVC files play like a cold breeze.

Hairsational Yes, that's right and we all know that "theoretically", This is why I started my statement with "When it comes to VR video encoding" then specifically expanded on the 8K+ resolution videos.

What I meant is, in real life implementations (encoding and observing) you MOSTLY can't see the difference between the two at same 8K+ resolution at same bitrate, with your perfect vision and high resolution headset.

At least, that was my case. And this is why I encouraged everyone to do the same tests using 8K+ resolutions at same bitrate at same color grade and see for themselves.

People still treat the AV1 specs as the judging factor for their 8K+ VR Videos arguments which is not always accurate.

I know it's confusing as many of us tend to rely on spec numbers and so on when compare. But VR Video format is a totally different beast, especially when observing with a VR headset, which is the way to go of course and thus can throw any specs and numbers out of the window.

In other words, as you said, what's the point of a higher quality if you can't see it with your perfect vision using high resolution headset? Yes, it's there, but it's out of our human eyes distinguish capabilities.

There is a "threshold" for our human eyes when it comes to visual quality, even with perfect vision.

If we don't have this vision limitation, All of us should rage about demanding the VR Camera RAW files themselves which would be hilarious.

And that's my whole point and I hope I cleared it out this time.

Best Regards.

LickLock That's correct. even on my PC (RTX 4080) Because AV1 is more taxing on hardware compared to HEVC.

VRXVR Hey Why 4080 can't run av1 soothly they said av1 is more efficient，what exactly the positive effect does the av1 bring?

The AVP can't even play those HBR AV1 files since it doesn't have a AV1 decoder onboard.

nimendie It's a bit more encoding efficient, so resulting in 10-20% smaller files. Or at the same file size, in slightly better quality. It's way more processing intensive though. And I was surprised to find that I actually thought that the HVEC examples at low bitrate that were posted, were better than the AV1 samples. At least I could distguish a bit more detail.

Hairsational point is that AV1 playback on local machines that dont have a recent GPU sucks, HEVC 8K plays perfectly fine on most GPU's but the AV1 requires a 3090 or above I believe, some people dont feel like upgrading a GPU is worth watching their new 8k codec until modern playback software can handle that codec correctly. Heresphere for example chokes up with AV1 and a 2080Ti on my media machine and overpriced GPU's are not worth it just to watch porn

petex67 I can't confirm this to be honest. But all I can tell is if both CPU and GPU don't have an AV1 Decoder, then software decoding is the way to go.

And it plays very smoothly up to 5K (5400x2700) actually according to some tests I did on my old test PC using DeoVR which natively supports AV1 currently. Of course, my CPU has to work very hard to play them smoothly with a little delay when you jump at different parts of the video.

Any resolutions higher than 5K, say "6K" (5760x2880) and up and it struggles to play them smoothly (low frame rates and a lot of hiccups) and the higher the resolution the worse the playback.

Of course I'm talking about an 8-bit videos, the situation is way worse (almost unplayable) with 10-bit videos at the same resolutions I mentioned.

metichemsi
Absolutely right and well said. Nvidia RTX 20 series are still very capable GPUs for many things including gaming.

The 2080 Ti can play current games at 1440p with mostly max settings and provides at least 60 FPS. Heck, it can do 4K with low to medium settings at 30 FPS easily.

So, yes, upgrading the GPU just to watch AV1 Videos is NOT worth it at all EVEN if the modern GPUs are not expensive.

I rather wait until a very large leap in performance happens to future GPUs to upgrade my RTX 4080 for more general purpose use. This is why I don't care about the recent RTX 50 series GPUs, the large performance leap isn't there yet.

VRXVR

VRXVR Hey l want upgrade my mobile1650 to rtx5060 to watch 8k high bitrate hevc is that enough?

VRXVR 100% agree! It's bad enough you cant even get a good modern GPU without paying scalpers and arm and a leg, there is no retail stock anywhere, makes no sense and further proves to me that streaming is all they seem to care about. Either way, I'm just going to continue building my own library of HEVC content for myself to enjoy for the foreseeable future or until GPU's go back to normal or software playback is optimized even on 20 series cards, if ever.

nimendie simply for HEVC that is overkill, I still have a 2080Ti and I can watch 8K HEVC perfectly fine with plenty of headroom still left where I can increase my steamvr render resolution to 200%+ if I want and still not max out my card. If you want the latest and greatest and it works well for your system and you got the cash, sure.

metichemsi l hope it can deal with the future 16k

nimendie Oh I dont know about that, I dont know that even a 5090 today could handle 16k without some foveated eye tracking mumbo jumbo black magic right now. I think if you really want to futureproof your system and again, you have the cash and system for it, then maybe just get the 5090 and be set for another 5-10 years. I personally wont bother upgrading my media PC beyond the 2080ti until the secondhand market for more modern GPU's normalizes, if it ever does haha Personally at this rate, I think future headsets might even be able to render 16k without a PC, just look at what the apple vision pro can do right now, and you know meta is going to eventually make a quest 4 and 5, by then your real concern might actually revolve around having good enough routers at home and fast and big enough storage media to locally stream 16k content to your headset lol