Google has mandated new Android TV devices must natively support the AV1 codec

AV1 is a royalty-free codec technology launched by the Alliance for Open Media. At present, the technology already supports soft decoding in major browsers and some players.

However, if you want to perform hard decoding, hardware support is required, which means that the equipment needs to be replaced with a new one. This is also the reason why the AV1 codec technology has been very slow to popularize.

After all, we are unlikely to change the CPU or mobile phone to be compatible with this codec, but the new policy introduced by Google will help accelerate the popularization of AV1.

According to XDA reports, Google has mandated that the newly launched Android TV must support the AV1 codec, which will help this technology cover more users.

Google has previously formulated relevant documents to require Android TV manufacturers to support the AV1 codec for all new devices launched after March 31, 2021.

This clause is a mandatory clause that all manufacturers must comply with. If the conditions are not met, the manufacturer may not be able to obtain Google’s authorization for the system.

It is said that this clause mainly applies to all new TVs equipped with Android 10 or 11 that will be launched later this year, although some manufacturers have already supported it in advance.

For example, some models of TVs launched earlier by Sony and TCL already support the AV1 codec, which actually depends on the chips on the TV.

If the manufacturer adopts a compatible chip combination, it can be easily supported. If there is no chip support and decoding by software, the effect will be greatly reduced.