In recent times, my opinion about self-hosting has changed. Instead of paying for multiple services, I am now renting a decently sized VPS on Scaleway, and hosting all my projects on them. It’s been three months, and it has been working out great for me.

Today, we have a very exciting development - Aviator, the Linux GUI for AV1 encoding, has switched to an in-house custom fork of SVT-AV1 dubbed SVT-AV1-PSY!

Featuring development efforts from BlueSwordM (author of the previous custom fork), myself (Gianni), and others, this change will enable us to have much more control over the encoder's development so that it aligns most effectively with Aviator's number one priority: visual quality.

So far, SVT-AV1-PSY's most noteworthy feature is a variance boost patch that appreciably improves intra- and inter-frame fidelity consistency across wide range of content. Visual fidelity per bit is estimated to have increased by up to 5% with this patch, which currently isn't present in mainline SVT-AV1.

Even though this patch should inevitably make it to mainline, the gains from having more direct control are already being realized as we can implement features like this flexibly at a pace we decide.

Aside from that, FFmpeg has been updated to version 6.1, the SCM toggle has been replaced with a more useful Open GOP toggle, and the README has been modified to reflect some of these more recent changes with regard to SVT-AV1-PSY.

Thank you for using Aviator, and happy encoding!

Aviator can be downloaded on Flathub, where 0.5.0 will be available soon.

This blog post on the Codec Wiki by encoder Trix presents extensive benchmarking of SVT-AV1 1.8.0 on animated content using both objective metrics and subjective image comparisons (the subjective part is coming soon). Short high-quality anime clips were encoded directly with SVT-AV1 across a range of settings. SSIMULACRA2 visual quality scores and encoding speeds were measured for each encode, along with bits per pixel to calculate encoding efficiency. The results are presented through graphs showing metric scores and speed, alongside comparison images enabling subjective evaluation of visual quality (again, comparison images coming soon for subjective analysis). This rigorous testing methodology provides insightful analysis of how SVT-AV1 performs when encoding animation.

This program generates an AV1 video encoding command for use with Av1an, a chunked AV1 encoding tool for use with aomenc, SVT-AV1, and rav1e.

This tool takes in the video resolution, frame rate, desired encoder, speed preset, and target bitrate range as command line arguments. Based on these parameters, it calculates settings like tile columns/rows, lag-in-frames, CRF, and encoder speed preset. Then, it injects these into a generated encoding command string.

The output is a full Av1an command that can be run to encode a video based on the specified settings.

Encoder

Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets: Speedup CRF presets M6 to M0 by 17-53% while maintaining similar quality levels Re-adjust CRF presets M7 to M13 for better quality with BD-rate gains ranging from 1-4% Improve the quality and speed of the 1-pass VBR mode Improve Multi Pass VBR algorithm for better quality with BD-rate gains of ~3% on average More details on the per preset improvements can be found in MR !2143

Add API allowing to update bitrate / CRF and Key_frame placement during the encoding session for CBR lowdelay mode and CRF Random Access mode ARM Neon SIMD optimizations for most critical kernels allowing for a 4.5-8x fps speedup vs the c implementation

Cleanup and bug fixes and documentation

Various cleanups and functional bug fixes Update the documentation for preset options and individual features

In the world of AV1 encoding, achieving high-quality, efficient compression often requires intricate knowledge & fine-tuning of confounding parameters (aom-av1-lavish ... looking at you, wink). This difficulty is compounded by the fact that you are faced with three open-source encoding options that are all compelling for different reasons. This can make tapping into AV1's potential a daunting task for novice and even intermediate users.

That's where rav1ator-cli comes in. I have attempted to distill weeks (months?) of community parameter testing & expertise into an easy-to-use interactive command line interface. With just a few prompts, rav1ator-cli guides you through choosing an encoder & selecting settings to achieve maximum perceptual efficiency at any speed or quality setting you prefer. Adding in the ability to specify custom parameters, rav1ator-cli provides a smooth on-ramp for newcomers while remaining flexible enough for power users.

Here are some of rav1ator-cli's standout features that make it a superb encoding tool: rAV1ator CLI can:

• Check if it is installed & up to date on its own without a package manager
• Download AVX2-optimized encoder binaries compiled with -O3 -flto in most cases & allow the user to install them with detailed instructions
• Encode with x264, x265, aomenc, SVT-AV1, or rav1e & set a speed preset, CRF/quality value, FFmpeg parameters, and encoder parameters
• Use pre-defined encoding parameters that are provided so you can say goodbye to cargo culting
• Generate Av1an encoding commands with the user's chosen settings & run them to encode a provided input video to an MKV output
• Encode from scratch, or resume a previous rav1ator-cli encode
• Engage with rich interactivity featuring spinners, prompts, dropdowns, & other glitz
• Error check downloads by checking hashes on the downloaded binaries for security & convenience

This tool is Linux only. If you'd like to install: These instructions are for Arch Linux specifically, but if you have all the dependencies, you can skip to Step 3 & it'll work on any distro (I'm assuming this includes WSL, too).

0. Update your system before doing anything. On Arch:

sudo pacman -Syu

1. Install yay (Arch only) by running the following commands:

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay && makepkg -si

2. Next, you'll want to install all of rav1ator-cli's dependencies. You can do that by running:

yay -Sy rust ffmpeg python mkvtoolnix-cli vapoursynth gum numactl l-smash vapoursynth-plugin-lsmashsource av1an ffms2

3. Install rav1ator-cli:

curl -sOJ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gianni-rosato/rav1ator-cli/main/rav1ator-cli && chmod +x rav1ator-cli
sudo cp rav1ator-cli /usr/local/bin

Thank you for looking at rAV1ator CLI! You can see demos as well as more info on the project at either link below. GitHub | Codec Wiki

Connect with me: https://discord.gg/bbQD5MjDr3

Hey AV1 Enthusiasts, encoders, and newbies alike,

I remember being completely new to the world of multimedia codec technology, and being totally lost on where to begin learning. To address this, I've decided to create a server tailored toward new learners. If you're looking to deepen your knowledge of multimedia codecs, particularly AV1, or you believe you have valuable insights to share, we've got an amazing community waiting for you.

I am thrilled to invite you to the AV1 for Dummies Discord server, a place dedicated to demystifying the fascinating world of AV1 encoding & beyond. Whether you're a seasoned codec professional or just dipping your toes into this field, there's something here for everyone.

Alongside this, I'm publicly announcing the Codec Wiki, a place where you can read about anything codec-related for hours on end. This wiki aims to demystify the realm of multimedia compression while connecting codec enthusiasts to create a sink of knowledge for the benefit of everyone. It is still under heavy development, so please heed this as you take in the information available on the site. If you have any questions or concerns, the place to ask is in the AV1 for Dummies server.

What's in it for you?

• 📚 Learning Resources: Access encoding tools, their developers, and an entire wiki dedicated to AV1 & other multimedia codecs.
• 💬 Engaging Conversations: Join lively discussions, ask questions, and share insights with fellow codec enthusiasts.
• 🧙‍♂️ Expert Insights: Seasoned experts with rich codec experience are available to discuss your needs with you as you learn.
• 🎲 Fun Challenges: Participate in codec-related contests and games to make learning enjoyable. (coming soon)
• 📌 Organized Topics: We have dedicated channels to ensure focused discussions, and a forum for asking & answering burning questions.

Ready to dive in? Here's the invite link: discord.gg/bbQD5MjDr3

We're all about respect and open-mindedness, creating a safe space for everyone to learn and grow. Come say hello, introduce yourself, and be a part of our growing community!

Let's learn, explore, and master the intricacies of AV1 and multimedia codecs together. Join us at "AV1 for Dummies" & unlock the world of AV1!

See you there! 🚀 ps: I posted this on Reddit as well, but this was not automatically also posted to Lemmy - I did that manually, as I like Lemmy more ;)

Show your support!

Updated SVT-AV1 to 1.7.0, which features rebalanced presets & more massive speed improvements In light of SVT-AV1's speedy development, Preset 7 is now high enough quality to be featured as Aviator's default speed preset "Copy Audio" now disables other audio options in the GUI New "Adaptive SCM" toggle (explained in tooltip) Small fixes & adjustments

Download for Linux on Flathub!

The attached screenshot is the mod of this community.

So far, it seems efforts to work on this community are going to cease due to shortcomings of both the Lemmy.world lemmy instance & the mod's frustration with these issues. So, I'd encourage you to check out the AV1 community on lemmy.ml until things change here either with lemmy.world as a whole or the mod's interests

Encoder

• Improve the tradeoffs for the random access mode across presets MR-M13:
• Quality improvements across all presets and metrics ranging from 0.3% to 4.5% in BD-rate (!2129)
• Spacing between presets [M1-M6] has been adjusted to account for the tradeoff improvements achieved
• As a user guidance when comparing v1.7 vs v1.6 in a convexhull encoding setup:
• v1.7.0 M2 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M1 while being ~50% faster
• v1.7.0 M3 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M2 while being ~50% faster
• v1.7.0 M4 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M3 while being ~40% faster
• v1.7.0 M5 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M4 while being ~30% faster
• v1.7.0 M6 is now at similar quality levels as v1.6.0 M5 while being ~25% faster
• Added an experimental tune SSIM mode yielding ~3-4% additional SSIM BD-rate gains (!2109)

Build, cleanup and bug fixes

• Various cleanups and functional bug fixes
• Fix build conflict with libaom

Molly advertises itself as a "hardened version of Signal," & its FOSS variant is the same without proprietary dependencies. TwinHelix's FOSS Signal fork goes further, adding OSM support instead of GMaps. Are these forks trustworthy, & are they worth using for added security compared to mainline?