"Set for a year-end release, AV2 is not only an upgrade to the widely adopted AV1 but also a foundational piece of AOMedia’s future tech stack.
AV2, a generation leap in open video coding and the answer to the world’s growing streaming demands, delivers significantly better compression performance than AV1. AV2 provides enhanced support for AR/VR applications, split-screen delivery of multiple programs, improved handling of screen content, and an ability to operate over a wider visual quality range. AV2 marks a milestone on the path to an open, innovative future of media experiences."
AV1 has issues with film grain. There are things you can do. Let me admit however that one movie that I have not encoded as AV1 is a restored version of the original Star Wars. And film grain is a contributor to that.
Another thing about film grain though is that it is often artificially added after as you say. With AV1, you can often get amazing compression that removes the grain as a side-effect and then just add it back yourself. To each their own how they feel about this approach.
I also agree that H.264 can be more transparent. However, that is at massive file sizes. Others may have the space for that but I do not… Perhaps I do mot have the eyes for it either. I am not extracting and comparing single frames. To me, the AV1 files that I have look better at the size that I am archiving than they would using any other codec.
I use the fact that massive bit rate H.264 looks great to my advantage as that is what my AV1 is being transcoded into when I watch it most of the time.
Some content compresses better than others. Sometimes I get massive size reductions with AV1 at what looks like great quality to me. Other times, it struggles to beat H.265 or even H.264 at similar quality. It is pretty rare that I do not choose AV1 though.
I often use Netflix VMAF to get an idea of target compression. It is not perfect though. You have to verify visually. Saves time trialing different parameters though.
I should say that the audio codec is another big factor. I typically pair AV1 with Opus audio and the size reductions there are amazing even at quality levels that are transparent to me.
If AV2 offers better quality at the same size, or similar quality at smaller sizes, I will likely switch to it long before having hardware that can play it natively.
oh dont get me wrong. as I said I agree with most of your original (and now second post).
my gripe with grain was not about av1 per se. it was with movie makers that add it just because they think it is how movies should be
this is retarded to me: “Reasons to Keep Film Grain On: Artistic Effect: Film grain can add a nostalgic or artistic quality to video and photography, evoking a classic film look” because the reason is just “nostalgic” that the director has, as in if he was born after digital era, he would have an issue with it and not add it (usually).
about h264 and transparency, the issue is not that h264 can get that but at high bitrate, the issue is that av1 (as I read) can’t get it at any bitrate.
but overall I agree with you.
I even recently was shocked to see how much faster av1 encoding has gotten. I would have thought it was still orders of magnitude, but with some setting (like x265 slow setting) av1 is has the same encoding speed.