>forcing AV1 regardless of the presence of on-device hardware support
replyI'm posting from a machine without AV1 acceleration. I disabled AV1 in Firefox's about:config and Youtube falls back to VP9.
Then that particular model doesn't support it properly. I don't think that changes my point.
replyIf the common hardware customers already have fails when you attempt to use a newer codec (but works fine otherwise), that can't be said to be a mainstream codec yet.
replyYour particular model is not representative of "the common hardware" as a whole. And it can be mainstream even when a significant fraction of devices can't use it. AV1 is a third of Netflix streams and most YouTube streams, that's more than enough to qualify as mainstream.
replyIt's on most of YouTube streams because Google forces it on devices that lack hardware support, even if it breaks the functionality of the device.
replyMainstream support doesn't have to be forced.
Even if half the devices were broken, it would still be more than a third of streams and mainstream.
replyA lot less than half of devices are broken when playing YouTube, I assure you.
If they stopped forcing it, it would still be the best choice most of the time. It doesn't "have to be" forced to be a major choice. The forcing changes the exact percentage but not the overall picture.