AV1 support for video players
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Ely~
I have tested around a bit and figured out that by default VRChat will not play videos that use AV1, however when installing the AV1 Video Extension from the Microsoft Store ( https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9MVZQVXJBQ9V ) AV1 videos will play without issues.
Would it be possible to implement AV1 support into VRChat or at least install the Microsoft Store app by default to make AV1 work reliably for all users instead of only some?
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HydrarDraconis
Have been doing some proof of concepts and I have livestreaming working of 4K AV1 into VRChat already, having the extension autoinstall with the post-install script in steam would be enough for me, since everyone I work with uses AVPro.
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Docteh
Does AV1 work on Quest?
Over on PC Automatically installing an extension via the Microsoft store might unsettle people.
Video playback in VRChat is an interesting stack of cards. World has a UI that can talk to either Unity, or AVPro, the Unity option stays within Unity so there is limited codec and transport support. For the AVPro option it can talk to DirectShow or Media Foundation, VRChat has chosen the Media Foundation option.
In summary VRChat can't add codecs into the inside of VRChat to be used down at MediaFoundation
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Docteh
Sadly I am not able to do any tests on Quest.
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Verified that it works on Android phones thanks to Haxy
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Docteh
Ely~ a randomredditor0408 just informed me that AV1 doesn't work on Quest 2
nil
It is possible for VRChat to add codecs to MediaFoundation. I think it's the MFTRegisterLocal function.
TekCastPork
Docteh
Agreed, having VRChat auto-install something from the Microsoft store isn't really an ideal route to "add" support for AV1 IMO (for the reason you mentioned, plus it may not work for everyone: for example I've blocked anything/everything related to Microsoft from contacting my PC for various reasons unless I specifically allow it for a short time window for security updates, so the Microsoft Store literally will never work on my PC. Granted this example is kinda specific to me, but there could be other scenarios where the Microsoft Store isn't viable for a user).
If they can find a way to integrate it into their Media Foundation implementation somehow then this would be a possibly big addition for club/livestreamed events because of the quality boost AV1 can provide.
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Ely~
Even VRChat has used AV1 in places before to reduce storage and bandwidth (when they published their new years stream recordings) so it seems logical to implement native support for it.
In addition to that it helps people with slower internet load videos faster along with helping people on limited connections save bandwidth.
Scratch the following since it would require that VRChat adds support for video and audio not being in a single file which is work they probably don't want.
YouTube offers AV1 for more and more videos every day so you could set yt-dlp to prefer the Av1 video over the others which would just be the nice thing to do towards YouTube.
Myrkur
tested this and can confirm installing that extension allowed me to play AV1 Videos without issues with both Unity Video and AVPro players
Myrkur
I also tested in editor and AV1 video plays fine at-least testing with ProTV Beta 3, but it wouldn't load the video when using Unity Video failing with invalid URL exception but would continue to work in game.