Should You Encode in AV1 in 2026? (Honest Answer)
30–50% smaller files, royalty-free, backed by YouTube and Netflix — and still slow enough to ruin your weekend. Where AV1 stands in late 2026, who should switch today, who should wait, and exact starting settings for the brave.
AV1 in late 2026: the honest state of play
What's ready
- YouTube serves AV1 by default on capable devices; Netflix ~30% of streams
- Hardware decode in ~80%+ of devices (browsers, phones, TVs, GPUs)
- Hardware encode: RTX 40+, RDNA3+, Intel Arc, newest Apple Silicon
- HandBrake 1.11+ and FFmpeg SVT-AV1 make encoding accessible
What still hurts
- CPU encoding 3–10× slower than x265 — 4K films take overnight
- Pre-2020 phones, TVs, and consoles may not play it smoothly
- Editing NLE support lags delivery (proxy/H.264 timelines still rule)
- Uploading AV1 to YouTube gains nothing — it re-encodes anyway
Switch or wait? (Decide in 30 seconds)
Self-hosted streaming / Plex for modern clients
Switch. You control playback and pocket ~30% bandwidth forever. Encode once, serve for years.
4K archiving with time to spare
Switch. Overnight CPU encodes at CRF 24–27 give the smallest future-proof masters. The slowness happens once.
Uploading to YouTube / Instagram / TikTok
Stay H.264. Platforms re-encode everything; AV1 uploads only process slower for identical viewer quality.
Audience on old phones, TVs, or consoles
Stay H.264/H.265. A file that stutters on the viewer's device is infinitely worse than a bigger file that plays.
Real-time capture / OBS recording
Hardware AV1 if you own a supported GPU (RTX 40+, RDNA3+, Arc) — near real-time. Otherwise NVENC H.264, no contest.
Starting settings (verify on your footage)
SVT-AV1 via FFmpeg — preset 4–8 balances speed and size (lower is slower and smaller); CRF 28–32 for general 1080p use, 24–27 for archival:
SVT-AV1 starting point
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 30 -preset 6 -c:a copy output.mp4
In HandBrake 1.11+, pick an AV1 preset (including AMD VCN AV1 hardware on supported cards) the same way you'd pick H.264 — RF values translate roughly 1:1. For the codec fundamentals, see our H.264 vs H.265 guide.
AV1 questions, answered
Is AV1 better than H.265?
~25–30% smaller at equal quality, royalty-free — but much slower to encode and pickier about playback. Better depends on your constraints.
Should I upload AV1 to YouTube?
No — upload H.264, YouTube makes the AV1 itself. Same viewer quality, far faster processing.
Can my devices play AV1?
Likely if post-2020 (browsers, phones, GPUs, smart TVs). Test the oldest device your audience actually uses.
How slow is AV1 encoding?
CPU: 3–10× slower than x265. Hardware (RTX 40+, RDNA3+, Arc): near real-time. CPU for archives, hardware for deadlines.
What CRF for AV1?
SVT-AV1 CRF 28–32 general 1080p, 24–27 archival, preset 4–8. Verify on your footage — grain and animation vary wildly.
Is AV1 replacing H.264?
In streaming delivery, mostly. As universal codec, no — H.264 has no sunset. A decade of coexistence.
The codec-agnostic option
Whatever wins, batch-convert into it.
H.264 today, AV1 tomorrow, something else in 2030 — libraries outlive codecs. Formatif Pro ($8.95 one-time) batch-converts folders between H.264, H.265, and modern formats offline, so the next transition costs you an overnight run instead of a month of evenings.
Keep learning
Future-proof the library, whatever wins.
Formatif Pro ($8.95 one-time) and Formatif AI ($12.95 one-time) handle video, image, and audio conversion offline — with batch workflows, no file size limits, and a 3-day free trial.
Written by
Founder of Formatif, a local-first offline media processing suite for Windows and Linux. Hadi writes about video, image, and audio formats, compression, and privacy-first desktop workflows.