Apple will add support for AV1 codec in various products

Apple recently launched the new M2 SoC, which is the direct successor to the latest generation M1. This chip will initially be used in the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. The latter is codenamed “Mac14.7” and its performance was leaked in the form of a synthetic test a few days ago, suggesting that Apple is not exaggerating its performance. M2 performance requirements.

While this is a really good sign for those looking forward to M2-based products, one of the annoying aspects of the M2 is the lack of support for the AV1 codec. The new chip supports H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC) up to 8K and ProRes’ own video format for playback up to 8K.

Here’s an official Apple press release:

• The media engine includes a higher bandwidth video decoder that supports 8K H.264 and HEVC video.
• The powerful Apple ProRes video engine lets you play multiple 4K and 8K video streams.

And this despite being part of Apple’s Open Media Alliance (AOMedia) consortium that supports the AV1 codec as of 2018.

However, all that may change as Apple appears to be working on AV1. This is indicated by the changes found in the AVFoundation Core Media framework’s libraries, with a new global variable designated “kCMVideoCodecType_AV1”. You can find it in the Apple Developer Documentation here. Source