What Are VP9 and AV1?

Streaming sites buffer less on slow Wi-Fi than they did years ago. Part of that is VP9 and AV1, codecs tuned for internet delivery rather than discs and broadcast chains.

Why new codecs keep appearing

Each codec generation tries to pack the same visible quality into fewer bits. Fewer bits means lower delivery cost and smoother playback on phones.

H.264 and H.265 come from the ITU/MPEG world. VP9 (Google) and AV1 (Alliance for Open Media) aim for open, royalty-free use on the web. Patents and licensing shaped which sites adopted which format.

For desk work, the question is simpler: can you encode fast, play everywhere, and hit the size cap? Often that means H.264 or HEVC in MP4, not AV1, unless you control the whole pipeline.

Royalty-free codecs matter to platforms that serve billions of streams. Your bottleneck is usually compatibility and encode time, not patent pools.

VP9 basics

VP9 launched as a successor to VP8. Major video platforms served large volumes of VP9 streams before AV1 rollout accelerated.

Traits:

• Better compression than H.264 at similar bitrates on many sources.
• Common inside WebM containers on the web.
• Hardware decode on many phones and recent desktops, but uneven on older corporate laptops.

Creators rarely export VP9 from Final Cut or Premiere as a default delivery format. You consume VP9 more than you author it.

Adaptive streaming means the service often picks VP9 or AV1 for viewers after you upload. Uploading H.264 does not prevent viewers from receiving a modern codec later.

AV1 basics

AV1 is the newer open codec from AOMedia members (browser and chip vendors). It targets further savings over VP9 or HEVC at comparable quality, especially at low bitrates. Exact percentages vary by content and encoder settings, so treat marketing savings figures as directional, not guarantees.

Traits:

• Strong for streaming platforms that transcode once and serve many viewers.
• Encoding is slow on CPU without dedicated hardware.
• Decode support grew quickly on TVs, GPUs, and mobile chips from about 2020 onward.

AV1 can live in MP4 and WebM, but camera and screen recorder defaults still overwhelmingly ship H.264 or HEVC.

How they compare to H.264 and H.265

Codec	Compression efficiency	Encode speed	Playback reach
H.264	Baseline	Fast	Universal
H.265 (HEVC)	High	Medium with hardware	Very good on modern devices
VP9	High	Slow on CPU	Good in browsers, mixed offline
AV1	Very high	Slowest without hardware	Growing, not universal

At 1080p, AV1 can look cleaner than H.264 at a much lower bitrate on hard content. At high bitrates for archiving, differences shrink.

See H.264 vs H.265 for the codecs you control in most export dialogs today. Container choice: WebM vs MP4 .

Where you already encounter VP9 and AV1

• Adaptive streaming on major video platforms.
• WebM assets on sites optimizing for modern browsers.
• Some conferencing tools that use modern codecs to save bandwidth.

You do not pick AV1 when attaching an MP4 to email. The recipient player usually expects H.264 or HEVC.

Encoding time and hardware support

Software AV1 encodes can be several times slower than H.264 on the same machine for similar visual targets. Hardware encoders on recent GPUs and Apple Silicon improve that gap but require supported apps and drivers.

VP9 sits between H.265 and AV1 on speed for many CPU encodes. For a one-off bug clip due in five minutes, waiting on AV1 rarely makes sense.

Decode matters for clients: an AV1 file that looks great on your laptop may stutter on an older conference-room PC. Test playback on the oldest machine in your audience before standardizing on AV1 for internal hosting.

What to export for your own files

Goal	Suggested export
Email, Slack, generic upload	H.264, 720p or 1080p, MP4
Apple-centric team, modern hardware	HEVC in MOV or MP4
Self-hosted web archive with tested players	VP9 or AV1 in WebM after playback tests
Master for editing	High bitrate H.264/HEVC or camera native

Match bitrate guidance and platform limits such as YouTube upload size before chasing the newest codec. When a stakeholder cannot play HEVC, convert HEVC to H.264 on Mac is usually faster than experimenting with AV1 encode times.

When H.264 is still the right answer

H.264 in MP4 remains the default for unknown recipients, email, and most upload forms. Streaming platforms will re-encode to VP9 or AV1 for viewers when they choose to.

GetCompress compresses and converts common delivery formats locally, including MP4, MOV, and WebM, with preview and reusable presets. Exact target file size is a video workflow. Prefer a clean H.264 mezzanine for creator uploads when the destination will transcode again. It does not replace a broadcast packaging suite or a platform’s own encode ladder.