Analysis of the MSU World Video Codec Competition and the Current State of the AV1 Ecosystem

In recent years, the rapid development of the video industry—especially short video, on‑demand, live streaming, and VR—has driven strong demand for high‑definition and ultra‑high‑definition experiences. Media platforms must improve viewer experience while reducing playback costs, using technology to lower bandwidth consumption without sacrificing picture quality.

Before transmission over a network, video must be compressed. Higher visual quality typically requires higher bitrates, increasing bandwidth costs. Therefore, improving compression efficiency is a continuous goal for video‑related companies, and video codec technology is a core focus.

1. MSU World Video Codec Competition Overview

The 2020 MSU (Moscow State University) World Video Codec Competition attracted top teams from iQIYI, Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Intel, Google and others. iQIYI’s self‑developed QAV1 encoder participated for the first time and achieved outstanding results, significantly reducing the complexity of the AV1 standard while maintaining high compression rates and offering a clear speed advantage.

QAV1 achieved a good balance between compression speed and quality: it ranked third in SSIM while its average encoding speed was 1.63 times faster than the first‑place encoder and 2.52 times faster than the second‑place encoder.

The competition expanded its video material library to 18,418 clips (a 16.3% increase over previous years) and selected 50 sequences based on complexity.

Twenty‑one encoders entered this year’s contest, including 10 H.265, 6 AV1, and 5 other standard encoders. AV1 encoders demonstrated a clear advantage over H.265 in compression performance, with AV1 surpassing H.265 in SSIM‑based offline benchmarks.

Overall, iQIYI’s QAV1 outperformed most H.265 encoders in both speed and compression ratio, showing that in offline encoding scenarios AV1 can achieve higher efficiency with equal or lower computational resources.

2. Current AV1 Ecosystem

AV1 (Alliance for Open Media Video 1) was released in June 2018 by the Alliance for Open Media. As of 2020, the alliance has 45 members, including 13 board members and 32 promoter members.

Since 2020, hardware support for AV1 decoding has grown dramatically, with Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, MediaTek, Samsung and others adding AV1 hardware decoders. This hardware foundation enables broader adoption of AV1 encoding.

On the content side, platforms such as iQIYI, YouTube, and Netflix are increasing AV1 video inventories. iQIYI launched AV1 video support on desktop browsers and Android mobile devices in April, becoming the first domestic video site to adopt AV1.

With widespread hardware decoders, continuous software encoder improvements, and growing platform support, the AV1 ecosystem is progressing toward a healthy and sustainable development.

3. QAV1 Encoder and Recent Advances

After participating in the MSU competition in May, iQIYI continued to upgrade QAV1. The latest rate‑distortion optimization algorithm further improves compression efficiency while preserving the encoder’s speed advantage. QAV1 now supports 8K resolution, high frame rates, HDR encoding, and refined bitrate allocation for complex scenes, delivering a better balance between bandwidth consumption and visual quality.

iQIYI now has the capability to mass‑produce high‑quality AV1 video content, and AV1 video offerings are expanding online. More terminal manufacturers are adding AV1 hardware decoding support, and iQIYI looks forward to collaborating with additional partners to enhance user experience through AV1 technology.