Netflix brings AV1 streaming to compatible TVs and PS4 Pro

San Francisco: Video-streaming giant Netflix is rolling out AV1 streaming for compatible smart TV models and PlayStation 4 Pro console.

AV1 is the first high-efficiency video codec format with a royalty-free license from Alliance of Open Media (AOMedia), made possible by wide-ranging industry commitment of expertise and resources.

"We are excited to announce that Netflix has started streaming AV1 to TVs. With this advanced encoding format, we are confident that Netflix can deliver an even more amazing experience to our members," the brand said in a statement.

Netflix claims that in their testing the reduced data consumption with AV1 results in up to 38 per cent noticeable drops in image quality on slower internet connections.

AV1 is gaining popularity for online streaming and media consumption, only a handful of streaming services to date encode some of their content in AV1.

It is a fast-emerging codec rated to boost compression efficiency by 20 per cent and 50 per cent compared to its better-known couterparts VP9 and H.264 respectively. Therefore, it might allow playback at higher resolutions and smaller file-sizes.

YouTube streams some videos encoded in AV1 on select Android TV devices and Netflix streams select titles in AV1 if the service's data saving mode is turned on.

According to Android TV Guide, it has also recently mandated that AV1 decoding be available on all Android 10 TV devices to come - so long as it has the chipset to support.