AV1 break-even calculator
Calculate the break-even point for AV1 encoding
The purpose of this calculator is to estimate the AV1 break-even point: How many views does it take to make up for the cost of using AV1 in addition to H.264 or H.265?
Inputs
Note: These are price point values that may be different for different customers.
Starting from these numbers of views, supplementing encodings with AV1 becomes more profitable than the respective codec alone.
For ease of comparison this calculator uses a fixed ladder. We recommend to use Per-Title as it can help reduce the break-even point further. It will optimize each ladder individually, usually resulting in a reduced number of renditions for more advanced codecs, hence reduced encoding and storage costs compared to a fixed ladder.
Calculation multipliers
These are the multipliers and factors used in our calculation. They are based on the Bitmovin Encoding Minute Calculation Methodology.
| Resolution factors | ||
|---|---|---|
| SD | HD | 4k UHD |
| 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Feature factors | ||
| 3-Pass | ||
| 2 | ||
| Codec factors | ||
| H.264 | H.265 | AV1 |
| 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Efficiency improvements | ||
| AV1 over H.264 | AV1 over H.265 | |
| 50% | 30% | |
- For the break-even point calculation we calculated the number of views such as: ([views] * [H.26X CDN delivery cost]) + [H.26X encoding cost] is equal to ([views] * [AV1 CDN delivery cost]) + [H.26X encoding cost] + [AV1 encoding cost]