Adopting AV1 for Real-Time Communication (RTC) at Scale | Yu Chen Sun Eric from Meta

Yu Chen Sun from Meta's media foundation team shares how Meta achieved breakthrough progress in bringing AV1 video codec to real-time communication (RTC) across the majority of mobile devices. The presentation discusses how AV1 delivers superior video quality compared to H.264 at the same bitrate, with a side-by-side comparison showing AV1's clearer visuals at 100 kbps on Messenger. The talk explains the unique challenges of RTC, where end-to-end latency must stay below 300 milliseconds to avoid user-perceivable delays . Meta tackled AV1's high computational complexity—typically twice that of H.264—by developing an internal encoder with an ultra-low complexity preset matching H.264's efficiency. They also implemented an ML-based device eligibility system using large-scale product data to determine optimal codec settings per device, rather than relying on fixed rules. The presentation covers dynamic complexity adjustments including adaptive encoding presets, codec switching to H.264 when needed, and peer feedback mechanisms for decoding capability. Additional quality improvements came from accurate rate control using VBV buffer monitoring to prevent network congestion,and error resilience through temporal layers and long-term reference frames for faster recovery from packet loss. Meta observed meaningful quality improvements and user engagement wins with AV1, encouraging broader industry adoption including hardware codec support across all device tiers.