NVIDIA Claims its AV1 Video Encoder is Superior to AMD and Intel's Alternatives

[TheLostSwede]

In a blog post, NVIDIA claims that its AV1 video encoder is vastly superior in terms of quality, compared to both AMD and Intel's alternatives. The still shot provided by NVIDIA to show its superior quality over its competitors, was encoded at 4K60p, obviously using the AV1 codec. Nvidia used its own GeForce RTX 4080 card and compared it to an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and an Intel Arc A770, with all three cards encoding the video at 12 Mbps using the latest release of OBS Studio.

It just so happens that OBS Studio 29.1 added support for AV1 over the Enhanced Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and now allows for live streaming using AV1 to YouTube. This is also the main reason for the NVIDIA blog post, as prior to this release, it wasn't possible to stream using AV1 in OBS Studio. NVIDIA has been known for the quality of its video encoder for quite some time, but we'd like to see some independent testing before we give NVIDIA the win here, especially as the company has only provided a single screenshot as proof of its superiority.



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[ZoneDymo]

"NVIDIA has been known for its superior video encoder for quite some time"

Following EpoxVox that claim is a bit much, but maybe a testament to Nvidias marketing, because really it goes back and forth a lot:

Notice here that Intel's Quicksync H264 quality is higher then Nvenc.

AMD was indeed pathetically behind, they did not take it seriously which is just bad but these days they are doing quite well as well, as an example:

And indeed, ill wait for Epox to do a video on it to show which is best and how much it matters.

 

[JB_Gamer]

Yes, it should be a sequence of frames, maybe all within a second

 

[TheLostSwede]

"NVIDIA has been known for its superior video encoder for quite some time"

Following EpoxVox that claim is a bit much, but maybe a testament to Nvidias marketing, because really it goes back and forth a lot:
View attachment 294302
Notice here that Intel's Quicksync H264 quality is higher then Nvenc.

AMD was indeed pathetically behind, they did not take it seriously which is just bad but these days they are doing quite well as well, as an example:

And indeed, ill wait for Epox to do a video on it to show which is best and how much it matters.

Reworded it, as yeah, they might not always have been superior, but they've never been the worst afaik.

 

[N3utro]

Who cares about AV1 streaming when you can't use it to stream to twitch?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Who cares about AV1 streaming when you can't use it to stream to twitch?

Everyone that streams on YouTube? I have honestly never watched anything on Twitch.

 

[Krit]

And without streaming only when you using shadowplay av1 works ?

 

[N3utro]

Everyone that streams on YouTube? I have honestly never watched anything on Twitch.

Nobody who wants to make it as a streamer today would use youtube as main streaming platform because youtube streaming audience is inconsequential to twitch's.

Even if your own habits go opposite to the mainstream ones , it doesn't change the fact that for the most part of regular streamers in the world this wont change much until twitch implements it, if they ever do.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Nobody who wants to make it as a streamer today would use youtube as main streaming platform because youtube streaming audience is inconsequential to twitch's.

Even if your own habits go opposite to the mainstream ones , it doesn't change the fact that for the most part of regular streamers in the world this wont change much until twitch implements it, if they ever do.

idk man, bit of a weird attitude im sensing from these reactions, Twitch is btw meant to implement it as well, it would only benefit them but of course there is little point to it when the hardware isnt there to support it.

And nobody who wants to make it as a streamer would use youtube? I mean maybe if you are a gamer....but ya know, people stream other stuff than that and youtube is perfectly fine for that, but if you have some data you would like to share that proves otherwise, by all means share it.

 

[N3utro]

idk man, bit of a weird attitude im sensing from these reactions, Twitch is btw meant to implement it as well it would only benefit them but of course there is little point to it when the hardware isnt there to support it.

And nobody who wants to make it as a streamer would use youtube? I mean maybe if you are a gamer....but ya know, people stream other stuff then that and youtube is perfectly fine for that, but if you have some data you would like to share that proves otherwise, by all means share it.

My data is: cite me one popular youtube streamer who lives from his/her revenues from streaming exclusively on youtube.

PS: i'm not a twitch supporter against youtube. I actually think youtube is better just for AV1. But too few ppl on it to be relevant.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Hopefully before 2050 Twitch will support it.

 

[rutra80]

My personal tests of H.264 and H.265 of nVidia, AMD and Intel also show that nVidia is best quality-wise. Comparable to slower settings of x264/x265.

 

[Mahboi]

It's probably a true claim but utterly pointless if you take shot for shot. As Tech Optimum put it when he tested the XTX's AV1, "in some shots Nvidia is better, in others AMD is better. Although overall I found more shots to be better on Nvidia, it's insignificant now".

I've been thinking of making a short AV1 test on my 7900 xt to see what the quality is. I expect nothing good from h264, but from AV1, it's going to be interesting.

 

[chrcoluk]

Bear in mind OBSS also is used for recording, so any enhancements benefit that.

I used to use x264 cpu encoding which I think is king, it has downsides though that its hard to use when playing a game on the same system, and its very power hungry. But you get both better quality and smaller files from it. Had to stop using it when energy crisis started.

I then tried NVENC using what was available on OBSS, and I found a combination of lower quality and much bigger files, the file size was the main issue. I did consider doing it this way on very high quality settings, then uploading my videos to a server in a DC, reencoding in the DC using their power, and then downloading again to get smaller files, but probably not viable until I get decent internet upload speeds.

I am now using a plugin in OBSS that allows H265 using NVENC, this significantly improved the filesizes, but is some frame drops as the encoder chip cant handle it at times, and the quality is still worse than cpu encoding.

All this stuff is why I have an interest in the new GPU's for encoding.

 

[ZoneDymo]

My data is: cite me one popular youtube streamer who lives from his/her revenues from streaming exclusively on youtube.

PS: i'm not a twitch supporter against youtube. I actually think youtube is better just for AV1. But too few ppl on it to be relevant.

I mean that is not a very helpful bit of "data" as I cant even mention a single popular streamer on twitch that makes their living exclusively on twitch....I dont really watch streams so yeah.
The cool thing of youtube is that your stream stays saved, so Adam Savage for example makes youtube videos but also streams stuff on youtube and it all just adds to his channel, on twitch you can only be live so its not really a good comparison in that way.

anywho, bit of the ol google:

https://videogames.si.com/news/most-popular-youtube-streamers-2022

sooo does that counter your "data" or what does this mean?

(unrelated, pretty sad to read here about the most watched person being apparently a complete piece of crap, has everyone gone morally bankrupt or what)

 

[TheLostSwede]

Nobody who wants to make it as a streamer today would use youtube as main streaming platform because youtube streaming audience is inconsequential to twitch's.

Even if your own habits go opposite to the mainstream ones , it doesn't change the fact that for the most part of regular streamers in the world this wont change much until twitch implements it, if they ever do.

Not everyone streams games though...

 

[R0H1T]

PS: i'm not a twitch supporter against youtube. I actually think youtube is better just for AV1. But too few ppl on it to be relevant.

I mean that's laughable, sure twitch might be catering elusively to gamers but YT is probably the second most popular website on the planet & should easily be the most watched in terms of cumulative hours spent on it.

Unless you also meant the gaming community is laughably small?

 

[dyonoctis]

My data is: cite me one popular youtube streamer who lives from his/her revenues from streaming exclusively on youtube.

PS: i'm not a twitch supporter against youtube. I actually think youtube is better just for AV1. But too few ppl on it to be relevant.

Valkyrae makes 171k$ a month from YouTube, and she managed to clearly dominate the monthly viewership a few times. And many popular streamers also happen to have a merch store...it's a bit hard to find a popular streamer who doesn't cash out on its popularity by expending into merch
Valkyrae Accidentally Reveals How Much Money She Makes on YouTube (gamerant.com)

 

[chrcoluk]

I mean that's laughable, sure twitch might be catering elusively to gamers but YT is probably the second most popular website on the planet & should easily be the most watched in terms of cumulative hours spent on it.

Unless you also meant the gaming community is laughably small?

One streamer I know who considered YT, said the issue is there is no big streamers on there to raid him, the issue is basically where most of the streaming community is, so its kind of a closed loop problem.

Personally I think as a viewer, the YT experience is way better than twitch, especially now twitch has gone complete crazy with the ad's they run.

When I last went on twitch I was cycling between channels to watch and about 70% of the time I had to wait for a 30 second advert before the stream came on.

 

[Mahboi]

One streamer I know who considered YT, said the issue is there is no big streamers on there to raid him, the issue is basically where most of the streaming community is, so its kind of a closed loop problem.

Personally I think as a viewer, the YT experience is way better than twitch, especially now twitch has gone complete crazy with the ad's they run.

When I last went on twitch I was cycling between channels to watch and about 70% of the time I had to wait for a 30 second advert before the stream came on.

Riiiight...I forgot about that since Ublock Origin. But Twitch was incredibly obnoxious with ads before.
Not that YT is great, but it's not THAT bad...

Hopefully before 2050 Twitch will support it.

I expect that we'll see the Alveo M35 be the change for it. Scalability is going to be a lot less expensive. We'll see by early next year I expect?

 

[chrcoluk]

Riiiight...I forgot about that since Ublock Origin. But Twitch was incredibly obnoxious with ads before.
Not that YT is great, but it's not THAT bad...


I expect that we'll see the Alveo M35 be the change for it. Scalability is going to be a lot less expensive. We'll see by early next year I expect?

Sadly ublock origin has no affect on twitch now, they changed the system.

I tried a few scripts on tampermonkey but they just made it too glitchy.

What my friend does is run ad rolls every 30 minutes which should exempt ad rolls when people join, as he hates the pre roll ad's like me, they can kill a small/medium channel easily.

Twitch turbo exempts most of the ad's, I have been thinking over it.

 

[Steevo]

Everyone that streams on YouTube? I have honestly never watched anything on Twitch.

Isn’t twitch mostly e-girls? Some sell bath water and it was like moon sugar for some…..

 

[zlobby]

All I can agree on is that simply AMD is not paying much attention to AV codecs. Nvidia is simply capitalizing on AMD's lazyness. Oh, and poor intel can only do this much, no matter how hard they try.

Isn’t twitch mostly e-girls? Some sell bath water and it was like moon sugar for some…..

In all honesty, that was sold out in minutes...

Valkyrae makes 171k$ a month from YouTube, and she managed to clearly dominate the monthly viewership a few times. And many popular streamers also happen to have a merch store...it's a bit hard to find a popular streamer who doesn't cash out on its popularity by expending into merch
Valkyrae Accidentally Reveals How Much Money She Makes on YouTube (gamerant.com)
View attachment 294314

Leave internet celebrities alone!

 

[Camm]

How do you know Nvidia has lost most of its advantage? Because they are trying to tell you otherwise.

 

[msimax]

I've been testing encoders for a while av1 is good been testing with the a770 and a380

1440p AV1 NDi quik test stream obs 29.1 beta 4 sloweest preset

QUICKSYNC AV1new presetquick test dual pc ndi with intel arc A770 obs 29.1beta4audio sync up

www.youtube.com

i still love the tweakability of X.264 and im doing research on all the different switches for SVT-AV1

still tweaking x264

#NarakabladePoint x264 NDi quik test stream b4 bed obs 29.1 rc1

quick test dual pc ndi with intel arc A770 obs 29.1beta4audio sync up

www.youtube.com