> The lack of hardware support in my home theater ecosystem makes AV1 a non-starter for me.
What is a home theater ecosystem? If you're using a HTPC with Kodi or Windows, you'll either soon have good realtime AV1 decoding, or already have it.
It takes time, but it is coming along faster than other rollouts over the last couple decades. Microsoft had a usable AV1 decoder in the windows store basically a few weeks after the bitstream was frozen; and as dav1d is hooked in to more applications, the decode performance on commodity hardware (which can be cooled passively) is becoming good enough to be practical.
I use my Nvidia Shield as well as the built in "smart" functionality on my TV, and a Roku Premiere+ in the basement. I also use an iPad Air to watch TV shows on the treadmill. Since a large chunk of the TV and movies I watch are ripped from disks I bought, I need to stick to formats these devices support. Apple put out a surprisingly competent software HEVC decoder for my iPad Air, and everything else here supports it natively.
What is a home theater ecosystem? If you're using a HTPC with Kodi or Windows, you'll either soon have good realtime AV1 decoding, or already have it.
It takes time, but it is coming along faster than other rollouts over the last couple decades. Microsoft had a usable AV1 decoder in the windows store basically a few weeks after the bitstream was frozen; and as dav1d is hooked in to more applications, the decode performance on commodity hardware (which can be cooled passively) is becoming good enough to be practical.