Video Decoding on Mobile Devices

I recently retired from Meta, where my last major project was broad deployment of AV1 across the Meta apps. As of late last year, > 70% of all video bits delivered to global Meta users were AV1. As only ~10% of global mobile devices have HW AV1 decoding, our effort was primarily build on SW decoding. Further, as nearly 1/2 of the world population is using Meta apps, nearly 50% of watch is on sub-$100 devices. We succeeded where others failed through rigorous benchmarking and bucketing of devices so that we knew which devices could handle AV1 and at what level. Some of which was discussed in our white paper (happy to share the link). My main project in retirement has been working the vcat-d (Video Codec Acid Test for Decoders) Android Benchmarking application. This app encapsulates and semi-automates the benchmarking work that we did at Meta. The tool runs looping video decode tests while monitoring device health and battery level. It supports all system HW and SW decoders... Read more