w3c / w3c/webcodecs

Support for AV1 switch frames

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#747 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Description

AV1 allows use of switch frames to drop to lower resolution, this could be great while the support for spatial SVC is still not there. From the AV1 spec:

Switch Frame
An inter frame that can be used as a point to switch between sequences. Switch frames overwrite all the reference frames without forcing the use of intra coding. The intention is to allow a streaming use case where videos can be encoded in small chunks (say of 1 second duration), each starting with a switch frame. If the available bandwidth drops, the server can start sending chunks from a lower bitrate encoding instead. When this happens the inter prediction uses the existing higher quality reference frames to decode the switch frame. This approach allows a bitrate switch without the cost of a full key frame.

Is there plans to add support for this in the AV1 encoder? Is it supported in the decoder?

Contributor guide

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First steps

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Research direction

The issue names no files, tests, or entry points. Start by locating the AV1 encoder and decoder integrations and any existing AV1 capability tests; done would require a clear support decision plus implementation and coverage for switch-frame behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
audio-video-rtc
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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