The new Scalable Video Technology for AV1 video codec from Intel and Netflix offers performance and scalability in video processing.

"The SVT-AV1 codec offers both high performance and efficiency. And compared to today's most popular codec (H.264 AVC), SVT-AV1 can help service providers save up to half their bandwidth, delivering leading-edge user experiences that can be quickly and cost-effectively delivered at a global scale," said Intel network platforms group vice-president and visual cloud division general manager, Lynn Comp.

"This codec makes it possible for services ranging from video on demand to live broadcast of 4Kp60/10-bit content on Intel Xeon Scalable processors, including the recently launched 2nd-Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor."

SVT-AV1 is described as a software-based scalable codec offering the best trade-offs among performance, latency and visual quality when working with visual cloud workloads.

It allows encoders to scale their performance levels based on the quality and latency requirements of the target applications, ranging from highest quality video on demand to live streaming.

The codec is optimised for video encoding on Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

Netflix director of encoding technologies David Ronca said "The SVT-AV1 collaboration with Intel brings an alternative AV1 solution to the open-source community, enabling more rapid AV1 algorithm development and spurring innovation for next-generation video-compression technology."

The SVT-AV1 codec is available under a permissive BSD+Patent licence. Source code and documentation are available here.

In related news, Intel has launched the Open Visual Cloud, an open-source project that includes a set of use-case optimised reference pipelines for visual workloads supporting the most popular open-source frameworks. The first two pipelines enable services for content delivery network transcode VOD streaming and intelligent ad insertion.