As a mobile project, videolan/dav1d has picked up 785 stars on GitHub (Assembly). A read-only mirror of dav1d source code repository. The origin is at https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/
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dav1d is an AV1 cross-platform decoder, open-source, and focused on speed and correctness.
It is now battle-tested and production-ready and can be used everywhere.
The canonical repository URL for this repo is https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d
This project was partially funded by the Alliance for Open Media/AOM.
Goal and Features
The goal of this project is to provide a decoder for most platforms, and achieve the highest speed possible to overcome the temporary lack of AV1 hardware decoder.
It supports all features from AV1, including all subsampling and bit-depth parameters.
In the future, this project will host simple tools or simple wrappings (like, for example, an MFT transform).
License
dav1d is released under a very liberal license, a contrario from the other VideoLAN projects, so that it can be embedded anywhere, including non-open-source software; or even drivers, to allow the creation of hybrid decoders.
The reasoning behind this decision is the same as for libvorbis, see RMS on vorbis.
Roadmap
The plan is the following:
Reached
Complete C implementation of the decoder,
Provide a usable API,
Port to most platforms,
Make it fast on desktop, by writing asm for AVX2 chips.
Make it fast on mobile, by writing asm for ARMv8 chips,
Make it fast on older desktop, by writing asm for SSSE3+ chips,
Make high bit-depth fast on mobile, by writing asm for ARMv8 chips.
Make it fast on older mobile, by writing asm for ARMv7 chips,
Make high bit-depth fast on older mobile, by writing asm for ARMv7 chips,
Make high bit-depth fast on desktop, by writing asm for AVX2 chips,
Make high bit-depth fast on older desktop, by writing asm for SSSE3+ chips,
Improve threading.
On-going
Improve C code base with various tweaks,
Accelerate for less common architectures, like PPC, SSE2, RISC-V or AVX-512.
After
Use more GPU decoding, when possible.
Contribute
Currently, we are looking for help from:
C developers,
asm developers,
platform-specific developers,
GPGPU developers,
testers.
Our contributions guidelines are quite strict. We want to build a coherent codebase to simplify maintenance and achieve the highest possible speed.
Notably, the codebase is in pure C and asm.
We are on IRC, on the #dav1d channel on Libera.chat. If you do not have an IRC Client at hand, use IRC Web Interface.
See the contributions document.
CLA
There is no CLA.
People will keep their copyright and their authorship rights, while adhering to the BSD 2-clause license.
VideoLAN will only have the collective work rights.
CoC
The VideoLAN Code of Conduct applies to this project.
Compile
General compilation steps
Install Meson (0.54 or higher), Ninja, and, for x86* targets, nasm (2.14 or higher)
Run mkdir build && cd build to create a build directory and enter it
Run meson setup .. to configure meson, add --default-library=static if static linking is desired
Run ninja to compile
Following are modification of step 3 and 4, for specific purpose.
Cross-Compilation for 32- or 64-bit Windows, 32-bit Linux
If you're on a linux build machine trying to compile .exe for a Windows target/host machine, configure meson like this
mingw-w64 is a pre-requisite and should be installed on your linux machine via your preferred method or package manager. Note the binary name formats may differ between distributions. Verify the names, and use alias if certain binaries cannot be found.
Run meson setup .. -Denable_docs=true to configure meson to generate docs from the build directory.
Run ninja doc/html to build the docs
The result can be found in build/doc/html/. An online version built from master can be found here.
Run tests
In the root directory, run git clone https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d-test-data.git tests/dav1d-test-data to fetch the test data repository
During meson configuration, specify -Dtestdata_tests=true
Run meson test -v after compiling
Decoder conformance tests (optional but encouraged)
Download the argon conformance bitstreams from https://streams.videolan.org/argon/
Extract into dav1d directory by running tar -xvf argon.tar.zst
Execute tests with tests/dav1d_argon.bash -d build/tools/dav1d -a argon
Expected outcome is 2763 files successfully verified in XXmYYs (dav1d 1.x.y-zz-gHHHHHHH filmgrain=1 cpumask=-1)
Support
This project is partially funded by the Alliance for Open Media/AOM and is supported by TwoOrioles and VideoLabs.
These companies can provide support and integration help, should you need it.
FAQ
Why do you not improve libaom rather than starting a new project?
We believe that libaom is a very good library. It was however developed for research purposes during AV1 design.
We think that an implementation written from scratch can achieve faster decoding, in the same way that ffvp9 was faster than libvpx.
Is dav1d a recursive acronym?
Yes.
Can I help?
Yes. See the contributions document.
I am not a developer. Can I help?
Yes. We need testers, bug reporters and documentation writers.
What about the AV1 patent license?
This project is an implementation of a decoder. It gives you no special rights on the AV1 patents.
Please read the AV1 patent license that applies to the AV1 specification and codec.
Will you care about <my_arch>? <my_os>?
We do, but we don't have either the time or the knowledge. Therefore, patches and contributions welcome.
The most recent commit recorded on videolan/dav1d was 1 month ago, based on the GitHub push timestamp. The repository has 101 forks — one of the better signals of community interest.
How many stars does videolan/dav1d have?
videolan/dav1d has 785 GitHub stars — refresh the page for the live number, or check github.com/videolan/dav1d. TopGit mirrors GitHub's count but does not claim minute-by-minute accuracy.
Is videolan/dav1d open source?
Yes — videolan/dav1d ships under the BSD-2-Clause license, which makes its source code freely readable (and, depending on license terms, forkable and reusable). Source: github.com/videolan/dav1d.
What else is in the Mobile space?
videolan/dav1d is tracked by TopGit under the Mobile category, alongside 10 GitHub-tagged topics. Trending and Topics pages list peer repositories of comparable stars and language.
What is videolan/dav1d?
videolan/dav1d (videolan/dav1d) is a Assembly project on GitHub. From the project's own README: A read-only mirror of dav1d source code repository. The origin is at https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/
What language is videolan/dav1d written in?
videolan/dav1d is written primarily in Assembly. GitHub's language field is based on the largest share of bytes in the default branch.
What license does videolan/dav1d use?
videolan/dav1d is released under the BSD-2-Clause license. Always verify the LICENSE file directly on GitHub for the authoritative terms — license strings can be edited out of sync with a project's actual stance.
Where do I read more about videolan/dav1d?
This TopGit page is a snapshot — the READ ME tab shows the project's own README content (links stripped, images preserved). The GitHub repository at github.com/videolan/dav1d is the definitive source.
Read full README in the tab above.
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