{"id":83757,"date":"2025-12-05T08:30:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/?p=83757"},"modified":"2025-12-05T08:33:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:33:28","slug":"av1-video-codec-wins-emmy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/mozilla\/av1-video-codec-wins-emmy\/","title":{"rendered":"When a video codec wins an Emmy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s not every day a video codec wins an Emmy. But yesterday, the Television Academy honored the AV1 specification<\/a> with a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award<\/a>, recognizing its impact on how the world delivers video content.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Gold
The AV1 specification was honored with a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award on Dec. 4, 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The web needed a new video codec<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Through the mid-2010s, video codecs were an invisible tax on the web<\/a>, built on a closed licensing system with expensive, unpredictable fees. Most videos online relied on the H.264 codec, which open-source projects like Firefox could only support without paying MPEG LA license fees thanks to Cisco\u2019s open-source OpenH.264 module<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially as demand for video grew, the web needed a next-generation codec to make high-quality streaming faster and more reliable. H.265 promised efficiency gains, but there was no guarantee of another OpenH.264-style arrangement. The risk was another fragmented ecosystem where browsers like Firefox couldn\u2019t play large portions of the web\u2019s video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter AV1<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To solve this, Mozilla joined other technical leaders to form the Alliance for Open Media<\/a> (AOM) in 2015 and started ambitious work on a next-generation codec built from Google\u2019s VP9, Mozilla\u2019s Daala, and Cisco\u2019s Thor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result was AV1, released in 2018, which delivered top-tier compression as an open standard under a royalty-free patent policy. It\u2019s now widely deployed across the streaming ecosystem, including hardware decoders and optimized software decoders which allow open-source browsers like Firefox to provide<\/a> state of the art video compression to all users across the web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AV1 is also the foundation for the image format AVIF<\/a>, which is deployed<\/a> across browsers and provides excellent compression for still and animated images (AVIF is based on a video codec, after all).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Emmy award reflects the value of open standards, open-source software, and the sustained work by AOM participants and the broader community fighting for an open web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead to AV2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

AV1 fixed a structural problem in the ecosystem at the time, but the work isn\u2019t finished. Video demand keeps rising, and the next generation of open codecs must remain competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AOMedia is working on the upcoming release of AV2<\/a>. It will feature<\/a> meaningfully better compression than AV1, much higher efficiency for screen\/graphical content, alpha channel support, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As AV2 arrives, our goal remains unchanged: make video on the web open, efficient, and accessible to everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not every day a video codec wins an Emmy. But yesterday, the Television Academy honored the AV1 specification with a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award, recognizing its impact on how the world delivers video content. The web needed a new video codec Through the mid-2010s, video codecs were an invisible tax on the web, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1889,"featured_media":83758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463312,5],"tags":[4708],"coauthors":[464214],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhen a video codec wins an Emmy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The AV1 specification a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for its impact on how the world delivers video content.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/mozilla\/av1-video-codec-wins-emmy\/\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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