Software » Codecs » SVT-AV1 1.8.0

## [2.0.0] - 2024-03-13

Major API updates
- Changed the API signaling the End Of Stream (EOS) with the last frame vs with an empty frame
- OPT_LD_LATENCY2 making the change above is kept in the code to help devs with integration
- Removed the 3-pass VBR mode which changed the calling mechanism of multi-pass VBR
- Moved to a new versioning scheme where the project major version will be updated everytime API/ABI is changed

Encoder
- Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets:
- Speedup presets MR by ~100% and improved quality along with tradeoff improvements across the higher quality presets (!2179)
- Improved the compression efficiency of presets M9-M13 by 1-4% (!2179)
- Simplified VBR multi-pass to use 2 passes to allow integration with ffmpeg
- Continued adding ARM optimizations for functions with c_only equivalent
- Replaced the 3-pass VBR with a 2-pass VBR to ease the multi-pass integration with ffmpeg
- Memory savings of 20-35% for LP 8 mode in preset M6 and below and 1-5% in other modes / presets

Cleanup and bug fixes and documentation
- Various cleanups and functional bug fixes
- Update the documentation to reflect the rate control changes


## [1.8.0] - 2023-12-11

Encoder
- Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets:
- Speedup CRF presets M6 to M0 by 17-53% while maintaining similar quality levels
- Re-adjust CRF presets M7 to M13 for better quality with BD-rate gains ranging from 1-4%
- Improve the quality and speed of the 1-pass VBR mode
- More details on the per preset improvements can be found in MR !2143
- Add API allowing to update bitrate / CRF and Key_frame placement during the encoding session for CBR lowdelay mode and CRF Random Access mode
- ARM Neon SIMD optimizations for most critical kernels allowing for a 4.5-8x fps speedup vs the c implementation

Cleanup and bug fixes and documentation
- Various cleanups and functional bug fixes
- Update the documentation for preset options and individual features


## [1.7.0] - 2023-08-23

Encoder
- Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets MR-M13:
- Quality improvements across all presets and metrics ranging from 0.3% to 4.5% in BD-rate (!2129)
- Spacing between presets [M1-M6] has been adjusted to account for the tradeoff improvements achieved
- As a user guidance when comparing v1.7 vs v1.6 in a convexhull encoding setup:
- v1.7.0 M2 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M1 while being ~50% faster
- v1.7.0 M3 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M2 while being ~50% faster
- v1.7.0 M4 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M3 while being ~40% faster
- v1.7.0 M5 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M4 while being ~30% faster
- v1.7.0 M6 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M5 while being ~25% faster
- Added an experimental tune SSIM mode yielding ~3-4% additional SSIM BD-rate gains (!2109)

Build, cleanup and bug fixes
- Various cleanups and functional bug fixes
- Fix build conflict with libaom


## [1.6.0] - 2023-06-18

Encoder
- Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets M1-M13:
- Speeding up the higher quality presets by 30-40%
- Improving the BD-rate by 1-2% for the faster presets
- Improve the tradeoffs for the low delay mode for both scrren content and non-screen content encoding modes
- Add a toggle to remove the legacy one-frame buffer at the input of the pipeline alowing the low delay mode to operate at sub-frame processing latencies
- Add a new API allowing the user to specify quantization offsets for a region of interest per frame

Build, cleanup and bug fixes
- Various cleanups and functional bug fixes
- Fix the startup minigop size BD-rate loss
- Add ability to run the ci-testing offline


## [1.5.0] - 2023-04-25

Encoder
- Optimize the tradeoffs for M0-M13 speeding up M5-M1 by 15-30% and improving the BDR of M6-M13 by 1-3%
- Create a new preset MR (--preset -1) to be the quality reference
- Optimize the tradeoffs for M8-M13 in the low delay encoding mode (!2052 !2096 and !2102) for SC and non-SC modes
- Add dynamic minigop support for the random access configuration enabled by default in M9 and below
- Add support to allow users to specify lambda scaling factors through the commandline
- Rewrite the gstreamer plugin and updating it to be uptodate with the latest API changes
- Add skip frames feature allowing the user to start encoding after n frames in the file
- Add ability to specify a smaller startup minigop size for every gop to enable faster prefetching
- Fix segmentation support and re-enable it with --aq-mode 1 to allow work on the region of interest API
- Add padding bytes to the EbSvtAv1EncConfiguration configuration structure keep its size unchanged until v2.0

Build, Cleanup and Documentation
- Major cleanups for unused variables, static functions, and comments formatting
- Reduce the size of variables
- Refine app level parsing and reference scaling API calls in the application
- Add dynamic minigop documentation along with updating the documentation accordingly


## [1.4.1] - 2022-12-12

Bugfixes:
- Fix CRF with maxrate bug causing bitrate to be significantly limited for CRF encodings
- Fix command line parsing forcing 1-pass in a 2-pass encoding mode when the --keyint=`x`s format is used
- Fix decoder segfault due to assuming aligned buffers in the inverse transform assembly


## [1.4.0] - 2022-11-30

Encoder
- Adopted the 6L / 32-picture mini-GOP configuraion as default and adjusted MD feature levels accordingly yielding higher compression efficiency gains
- Update the TPL model to account for the larger mini-gop size
- Re-tune presets M0-M12 using the gained coding efficiency for improved quality vs cycles tradeoffs
- Allow duplicate commandline parameters to be parsed and take into consideration the latter to allow AWCY integration

Build, Cleanup and Documentation
- Make include and lib paths friendly to abs and rel paths
- Update preset and API documentation
- Various functional bug fixes
- Remove manual prediction structure support


## [1.3.0] - 2022-10-18

Encoder
- Port SIMD optimizations from libDav1D making the conformant path (Inv. Transform) faster
- Enabling smaller mini-GOP size configurations and tuning it for the low delay mode
- Tuning the low-latency mode in random access targeting latencies from 250ms to 1s
- Adding GOP-constrained Rate Control targeting low-latency streaming applications
- Optimize mode decision features levels for depth partitioning, RDOQ, MD stage0 pruning in-loop filtering temporal filtering and TPL adding more granularity and gaining further quality
- Preset tuning M0-M13 to smooth the spacing and utilize the quality improvements towards better tradeoffs

Build, Cleanup and Documentation
- Update preset and API documentation
- Various functional bug fixes
- Remove the use of GLOB in cmake and use file names


## [1.2.1] - 2022-08-15

- Fix a crash at the end of the encode that may occur when an invalid metadata packet is sent with the EOS packet


## [1.2.0] - 2022-08-02

Encoder
- Improve CRF preset tradeoffs for both the default and fast-decode modes
- Improve the SSIM-based tradeoffs of the presets without impacting those of PSNR / VMAF
- Improve CBR mode by enhancing the bit-distribution within the gop
- Added support for reference frame scaling
- Added support for quantization matrices
- Added svtparams patches applicable to ffmpeg 4.4
- AVX2 optimizations for low-delay mode
- TPL-based VBR mode improvements
- Improved Chroma RDOQ
- Improve TPL QP Scaling
- Add length info to ivf header
- Fix support for metadata pass-through
- Add ability to specify Chroma and Luma qindex offsets independently on top of CRF qp assignments

Build, Cleanup and Documentation
- Fix multiple API documentation mismatches
- Updated features documentation
- Various functional bug fixes


## [1.1.0] - 2022-05-17

Encoder
- TPL tradeoff optimizations for 4L pred structure
- Quality-vs-cycles tradeoff improvements across all presets
- Add ability to force key_frame positions through ffmpeg for CRF mode
- Minimize the quality impact of fast-decode while maintaining the decoder speedup
- AVX2 optimizations for low delay mode
- Fix VQ issues #1896 #1857 and #1819

Build, Cleanup and Documentation
- API / ABI cleanup and implement independent versioning
- Add UEB_DLL for static linking with pkgconf
- Update system requirements docs
- Rate control code refactoring
- Fix AVX512 vs AVX2 mismatch

## [1.0.0] - 2022-04-22

Encoder
- Added S-frames support
- CBR Rate control mode for low delay
- Added support for chroma position signalling
- Added support for skipping denoising pictures after film grain synthesis
- Extend fast-decode support to cover presets M0-M10
- Simplified --fast-decode to have only one level
- Optimized --fast-decode level 1 for better tradeoffs
- Visual quality improvements addressing issues #1819 / #1297
- Visual quality fixes and improvements for both tune 0 and 1
- Quality vs density tradeoffs tuning across all presets in CRF mode with TPL improvements
- Update default settings to use a longer gop / higher quality preset and lower CRF value
- Various code cleanups and memory optimizations
- Additional AVX2 optimizations
- Fixed all known functional bugs
- More robust rate control parameter verification

Build and Documentation
- Major documentation update and re-structure
- Added more user guides, preset guides and common questions section
- Improve CI coverage
- Reduced unnecessary warnings
- Improved the documentation of the configuration parameters
- Improve Unit Test Coverage
- Address C vs asm mismatches


## [1.0.0] - 2022-04-22

Encoder
- Added S-frames support
- CBR Rate control mode for low delay
- Added support for chroma position signalling
- Added support for skipping denoising pictures after film grain synthesis
- Extend fast-decode support to cover presets M0-M10
- Simplified --fast-decode to have only one level
- Optimized --fast-decode level 1 for better tradeoffs
- Visual quality improvements addressing issues #1819 / #1297
- Visual quality fixes and improvements for both tune 0 and 1
- Quality vs density tradeoffs tuning across all presets in CRF mode with TPL improvements
- Update default settings to use a longer gop / higher quality preset and lower CRF value
- Various code cleanups and memory optimizations
- Additional AVX2 optimizations
- Fixed all known functional bugs
- More robust rate control parameter verification

Build and Documentation
- Major documentation update and re-structure
- Added more user guides, preset guides and common questions section
- Improve CI coverage
- Reduced unnecessary warnings
- Improved the documentation of the configuration parameters
- Improve Unit Test Coverage
- Address C vs asm mismatches


## [1.0.0-rc2] - 2022-04-12

Encoder
- Added support for chroma position signalling
- Added support for skipping denoising pictures after film grain synthesis
- Simplified --fast-decode to have only one level
- Optimized --fast-decode level 1 for better tradeoffs
- Visual quality improvements addressing issues #1819 / #1297
- Fixed all known functional bugs

Build and Documentation
- Improve CI coverage
- Reduced unnecessary warnings
- Improved the documentation of the configuration parameters


## [1.0.0-rc1] - 2022-03-29

Encoder
- CBR Rate control mode for low delay
- Added S-frames support
- Visual quality fixes and improvements for both tune 0 and 1
- Extend fast-decode support to cover presets M0-M10
- More robust rate control parameter verification
- Quality vs density tradeoffs tuning across all presets in CRF mode with TPL improvements
- Update default settings to use a longer gop / higher quality preset and lower CRF value.
- Various code cleanups and memory optimizations
- Additional AVX2 optimizations
- Fixed all known reported deadlocks

Build and Testing
- Improve CI coverage
- Improve Unit Test Coverage
- Address C vs asm mismatches


## [0.9.1] - 2022-02-23

Encoder
- New `key=val` API for setting encoder options along with `--svtav1-params` appside
- New `--fast-decode` option for producing bitstreams tuned for faster decoding M5- M10
- New `--tune` support for a subjectively optimized encoding mode
- Quality vs density tradeoffs improvements for 4k resolutions and reduction or resolution checks
- New SSE kernels for better encoding speed on older hardware
- Bugfix: Removed `DISABLE_REALTIME` and instead implemented better checks for realtime encoding
- All open library bugs resolved and closed

Build and Testing
- Windows: Moved .dll files to the binary directory next to the exe to fix dll loading issues
- Windows: General VS 2017 compilation speedup
- Windows: Added VS 2022
- BSD: Fixed compilation issues and errors surounding GLIBC specific interfaces and conflicting names
- Dockerfile added


## [0.9] - 2022-01-19
Encoder
- New faster presets M9-M12, M12 reaching similar complexity level to that of x264 veryfast
- New multi-pass and single pass VBR implementation minimizing the quality difference vs CRF while reducing the cycle overhead
- Quality vs density tradeoffs improvements across all presets in CRF mode
- Added support for CRF with capped bitrate
- Added support for overlay frames and super resolution
- Fixed film grain synthesis bugs
- Added experimental support for > 4k resolutions
- Added experimental support for the low delay prediction structure
- Significant memory reduction especially for faster presets in a multi-threaded environment
- API configuration structure cleanup removing all invalid or out of date parameters
- Speedup legacy CPUs for faster development by adding SSE code for corresponding C-kernels
- Updated the code license from BSD 2-clause to BSD 3-clause clear
- Cleaned up the code for various kernels
- Updated the user guide and feature documentation

Build and Testing
- Bug fixes
- Improve CI coverage
- Improve Unit Test Coverage
- Address C vs asm mismatches
- Fix static analysis warnings / errors


[0.8.7] - 2021-05-08
Encoder

Feature optimizations: creating new mode decision / encode-decode feature levels allowing better speed / quality trade-off granularity
Preset repositioning after adopting new levels
Preset 8 achieving similar speed levels to that of x265 medium in the VOD (shot-based encoding) use-case while maintaining quality gains
New 1-pass and 2-pass VBR implementation ported from libaom and adapted to the SVT architecture - still a WIP
Cleaned up old VBR and CVBR RC code along with the lookahead mechanism associated with them
Improvements for TPL algorithm to handle long clips and easy content
Added HDR support and color primaries SEI signaling (off by default until integrated with ffmpeg)
Memory optimizations, cleaning up data structures to reduce memory usage up to 2x memory reduction in multi-threaded VBR environment
Additional AVX2 and AVX512 optimizations
Cleaned up unused command line parameters except the config params that are linked to ffmpeg
Update user guide and documentation

Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Improve CI coverage
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches
Fix static analysis warnings / errors


[0.8.6] - 2020-11-28
Encoder
Further quality-speed tradeoffs tuning for VOD use cases
Improved TPL support within 1-pass and 2-pass CRF moode
Continued non-optimized support for 2pass VBR and CRF
Align kernel nomenclature to prefix svt_aom for kernels brough from libaom to avoid symbol conflicts
Build and Testing
Bug fixes
Improve CI
Added CI support for gitlab
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches
Fix static analysis warnings / errors
Add address sanitizer
Fix symbol conflicts with libaom and libvpx when staticly linked to ffmpeg


[0.8.5] - 2020-09-04
Relicensing notice
Change the outbound license from BSD+Patent to the AOM license / patent
Encoder
Added tpl support to adaptively change lambda and quantization parameters within the frame
Added multi staged hme support
Quality speed trade-offs tuned to VOD use cases
Added first level non-optimized support for 2pass VBR and CRF
Added combined cli two pass support with options for stats being written to a memory buffer and a specified file
Added non square partitioning optimizations
Improved lambda generation
Build and Testing
Bug fixes
Improve CI
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches
Fix static analysis warnings / errors
Add address sanitizer
Fix symbol conflicts with libaom and libvpx when staticly lined to ffmpeg


[0.8.4] - 2020-06-26
Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Improve CI
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches
Fix static analysis warnings / errors
Add address sanitizer
Various ffmpeg patch fixes
[0.8.3] - 2020-04-24
Encoder

Presets optimization
Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Xcode build support


[0.8.2] - 2020-04-18
Encoder

Initial Super resolution support
Mode decision rate estimation enhancements
Altref improvements
Manual prediction structure support
Enhanced RDOQ support
Improved warp motion
Improved documentation and help menu
New command line parameters
Fix non-multiple of 8 resolution video corruption for 8bit
Improved multi-stage mode decision support
Added multi-stage motion estimation support
Chroma mode decision optimizations
Added 16bit pipeline support
Added Mode decision non-square partition weights
Enhanced qp-scaling assignment
Memory optimizations
Added AVX512 Optimizations
Added AVX2 Optimizations
Decoder

Improved multi-threading support
Memory optimizations
Updated documentation
Loop filter flow optimization
Encoder and Decoder

Encoder-Decoder-Common folder structure improvements
Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Improve CI
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches
Support C only builds (for platforms other than x86)


[0.8.1] - 2020-01-28
Encoder

Palette support for 10-bit
Added the first batch of detailed documentation to help developers
Encoder and Decoder

Code cleanup and refactoring
Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Improve CI
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches


[0.8.0] - 2019-12-20
Encoder

Preset Optimizations
Single-core execution memory optimization [-lp 1 -lad 0]
Rate estimation update enhancements
Added on / off flags for feature run-time switching
Added auto-max partitioning algorithm
Multi-pass partitioning depth support
Remove deprecated RC mode 1 and shifter RC mode 2 and mode 3 to mode 1 and mode 2 respectively
Update Cost Calculation for CDEF Filtering
Intra-Inter Compound for 10-bit
Eigth-pel optimization
Added AVX512 Optimizations
Added AVX2 Optimizations
Decoder

Initial multi-threading support
Decoder optimizations / cleanup
Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Improve CI
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches


[0.7.5] - 2019-11-24
Encoder

RDOQ for 10-bit
Inter Intra Class pruning at MD-Staging
Global Motion Vector support for 8-bit and 10-bit
Interpolation Filter Search support for 10-bit
Palette Prediction support
2-pass encoding support
ATB 10-bit support at the encode pass
Simplified MD Staging [only 3 stages]
Inter-Inter and Inter-Intra Compound for 10-bit
Intra Paeth for 10-bit
Filter Intra Prediction
New-Near and Near-New support
OBMC Support for 8-bit and 10-bit
RDOQ Chroma
ATB Support for Inter Blocks
Temporal Filtering for 10-bit
Eight-pel support in predictive ME
MCTS Tiles support
Added AVX512 Optimizations
Added AVX2 Optimizations
Decoder

SuperRes support
Reference Frame Scaling support
12-bit support
Annex B support
Build and Testing

Bug fixes
Improve CI
Improve Unit Test Coverage
Address C vs asm mismatches


[0.7.0] - 2019-09-26
Encoder

Enhanced MRP Reference Frames
Intra Inter Compound
QP Modulation support
MFMV Support
MD Staging design [Up to 4 MD stages and 3 prediction classes: Intra / Inter / Compound]
Compound Motion prediction
10-bit Mode Decision support for Intra
Thread safe resource allocation
Added AVX512 Optimizations
Added AVX2 Optimizations
Decoder

Screen Content Tools
Temporal MV scan support
Inter support
Screen Content Tools support
Post Processing Filters support
Compound Mode (InterInter & InterIntra) Tool support
Decoder Film Grain support
Build and Testing

Improve CI
Improve build scripts
Improve cmake lists
Improve Unit Test Coverage
API update
Bug fixes


[0.6.0] - 2019-06-28
Inital decoder implementation
Static library support
Alt-ref pictures - temporal filtering
Adaptive Transform Block for INTRA
Adaptive QP scaling
Decoder - Support for Tiles and 10bit
API - add option to calculate / report PSNR values
Support for segmentation
SIMD Optimizations
Downsampling 2x2 filtering
Handle incomplete SBs
MACROS / trailing / tabs-spaces cleanup


[0.5.0] - 2019-05-17
8 bit / 10 bit 4:2:0 up to 4k60p resolutions
Presets 0-8
New API, FFmpeg, GStreamer plugins
Rate control support (VBR, CVBR)
Block sizes from 4x4 to 128x128
Non-square blocks
Tiles
Deblocking / CDEF / Restoration filters
Film Grain
Warped motion estimation
Intra block copy
Trellis quantized coefficient optimization
Support for 4 and 5 layers prediction structures
Chroma search in MD
Multi-reference picture support