How Meta Is Improving Your Video Calls with AV1

Meta is improving video call quality by adopting the advanced, royalty-free AV1 codec, sharing the technical challenges it overcame at scale.

Meta has detailed its multi-year effort to adopt the AV1 video codec for its real-time communication services, including video calls. AV1 is a modern, open-source, and royalty-free video format that promises higher quality at lower bitrates compared to older standards. The company’s engineers shared the significant technical hurdles they overcame to deploy it at a massive scale. The process involved carefully selecting which devices had enough processing power to handle the new codec without draining batteries. They also had to create custom solutions for two critical challenges in live video: rate control and error resilience. Rate control adjusts video quality on the fly to match a user's changing network conditions, while error resilience helps prevent video from freezing or becoming garbled when data packets are lost during transmission. These innovations were necessary to ensure a smooth and reliable experience for millions of simultaneous users.

Meta's successful deployment is a major endorsement of the AV1 codec, signaling its readiness for mainstream use in demanding, large-scale applications. For developers, CTOs, and founders in the video technology space, Meta's public write-up offers a valuable playbook for implementation. The shared solutions for managing network fluctuations and data loss are particularly relevant for anyone building communication tools. This shift ultimately benefits consumers, who can expect clearer and more stable video calls that consume less data. Furthermore, because AV1 is royalty-free, its adoption by major players like Meta encourages broader industry innovation. It lowers the financial barrier for startups and smaller companies to compete, fostering a healthier ecosystem for video technology without the burden of expensive licensing fees.

Meta's adoption of the open, royalty-free AV1 codec is a major industry signal that the technology is mature for large-scale, real-time applications. It provides a blueprint for other companies and promises better, more efficient video calls for everyone.

By using the royalty-free AV1 codec, companies can avoid significant licensing fees associated with other advanced codecs like HEVC. This lowers the cost of innovation for video-based products, enabling higher-quality streaming and communication services for both large corporations and startups.