Oh gosh, yes. Video decoders for games is one hell of a complex topic. For a start: patents are everywhere and not free.

If you want to decode a 4K video with bare normal framerate (even on modern hardware), you can't do it without paying a patent to someone. You just can't.

(cont.)

April 09, 2026 - 18:43 UTC

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Seen recently that there was patent litigation on h264 because of course there is

And even av1 which at the start was SPECIFICALLY pitched as "free of this bullshit" (and the "alliance of open media")

And then Dolby and others decided 7 or 8 years in to go on a witch hunt.

Abolish sw patents!!!!!
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Side note... curious how Xbox Series/PS5 don't have AV1 decoding???

(Since those GPU archs they can do it ?)

Switch 1 IDK, that chip is more than 10 years old at this point

I would expect Switch 2 can handle it tho?

(And Android can, but probably not all smartphones, and iOS... IDK 😅)
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Decoding is freaking expensive, you really need something like a GPU or a special chip to reach decent framerate. Problem: that relies on patents, and someone must pay for them.

Players pay.

When you buy a console, part of its price is made of the patent costs to decode video on a special chip.
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Okay, so what? Each and every console already pays a patent for devs to decode videos for free, cool?

Unless that demands devs to code a different video decoder for each platforms because each of them has a different way to use that special chip. That's a lot of work, and really sucks.
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I see you said AV1 isn't compatible with everything, is VP9 not usable too? Do you have the reason?
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AV1 and VP9 do "run" everywhere (and AV1 pretty much is VP9 with a moustache). It's not a format problem.

The problem is the availability of code/decoders to reliably use a single format across all platforms with non-choppy framerate.

To this day, there is no "one to rule them all" situation.
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