AOMedia Finalizes AV2 Video Codec Spec, Successor to AV1

The Alliance for Open Media has published the v1.0.0 specification for AV2, the royalty-free successor to AV1. The standard targets better compression efficiency than its predecessor, aiming to deliver equivalent visual quality at lower bitrates for streaming, broadcast, and real-time conferencing workloads.

Beyond raw efficiency gains, AV2 adds explicit support for AR/VR content, split-screen multi-program delivery, and improved screen-content coding, while extending the usable quality range. The release ships with the full bitstream syntax and decoding process, a PDF of the spec, C header files containing the lookup tables from section 9, and a syntax browser for navigating structures and semantics side by side.

Implementers get a matching reference codebase in the AOMedia Video Model (AVM), tagged v1.0.0 alongside the spec. As an open, royalty-free alternative to H.266/VVC, AV2 continues AOMedia’s bid to keep next-generation video coding outside the MPEG patent-pool model that has historically slowed adoption.