The full form of AV1 is AOMedia Video 1

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 that includes semiconductor firms, video on demand providers, video content producers, software development companies and web browser vendors. The AV1 bitstream specification includes a reference video codec. In 2018, Facebook conducted testing that approximated real world conditions, and the AV1 reference encoder achieved 34%, 46.2% and 50.3% higher data compression than libvpx-vp9, x264 high profile, and x264 main profile respectively.

AV1 is a new video codec that promises to help companies and individuals transmit high-quality video over the internet efficiently, without paying royalty fees.

AV1 is the first project to come out of the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium that promotes media codecs, formats, and technologies for the public web. Mozilla joined AOMedia in 2015 as a founding member. Mozilla sponsors open media codecs like AV1 because they have the potential to remove technical and financial barriers for people who want to create and share high-quality media experiences on the open web platform.

The most popular video format in use today is AVC/H.264. That technology was introduced in 2003 and is owned by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

AV1 is different from AVC/H.264 because it:

• Uses next-generation compression technology that is nearly twice as efficient
• Can transmit high-quality video faster over the internet
• Has no licensing fees; anyone can compress and decode video files without paying royalties
• Can deliver higher-quality experiences to end users, even when bandwidth is constrained

MPEG has created a successor to AVC/H.264, known as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) or H.265, which has improved compression. However, uncertainty around HEVC’s licensing fees make it untenable for both web browsers and content creators.

The goal of the AV1 project is to replace AVC/H.264 as the predominant video format for the web and to compete with the HEVC codec, so high-quality video can be shared freely and efficiently on the open web platform.