New integration guide for AV1™ in Axis Devices

As video systems evolve, the demand for higher quality, lower bandwidth consumption, and smarter data handling continues to grow. At Axis, we see AV1™ as a key technology enabling efficient and scalable video solutions.

A recurring challenge in video streaming is delivering optional data, such as diagnostics, analytics overlays, or bounding boxes, without duplicating streams. AV1 embeds overlays directly through metadata and a single stream can carry both the base view and optional layers that users can toggle dynamically.

AV1 is designed as an open and royalty-free video codec created by the Alliance for Open Media. It builds the strengths of earlier standards like H.264 and VP9 while meeting the performance and flexibility needs of modern streaming.

The following are some of its main advantages:

Supported by Axis ARTPEC-9 devices using the Main Profile with 8-bit color depth.
Native compatibility across major browsers, hardware decoders, and frameworks like FFmpeg.
High compression efficiency provides the same visual quality at significantly lower bitrates.
AV1’s open design encourages collaboration and long-term innovation, creating a foundation for features like dynamic overlays that redefine how video can behave.

Togglable overlays

The togglable overlays feature combines all visual layers into one and eliminates the need for multiple video streams. You can easily enable or disable overlays such as text, images, annotations, or bounding boxes, during live view and recordings (if the player supports it).

A single AV1 stream now carries everything needed for both standard and annotated visuals, offering a clean, scalable alternative to managing multiple feeds.

Technical implementation

In our AV1 implementation with toggleable overlays, the encoder inserts an Open Bitstream Unit (OBU) at the start of each Group of Pictures (GOP). This OBU contains metadata that defines each overlay. The same mechanism is also used to support features such as SignedVideo™ and F-Frames.

This metadata provides precise instructions for how clients should display each view. The result is a self-describing stream where applications can parse metadata to discover and control overlays without prior configuration. The intelligence needed for interaction is built into the video itself.

Trade-offs and considerations

Here are some factors you should be aware of:

There are codec and hardware dependencies since it is only compatible with AV1 on ARTPEC-9 devices running AXIS OS 12.7 or later.
Slightly higher bitrate and decoding requirements than a standard single-layer stream.
Encoding multiple layers draws more on-device resources, increases processing load and reduces maximum throughput.
Not currently compatible with multi-view streams.

Conclusion

Video is transformed from static frames into a richer, more interactive format thanks to AV1's metadata features. The long-standing two-stream issue is resolved, and new approaches to creating responsive, data-aware video applications are made possible by the direct integration of overlays and control logic into a single stream.

AV1 delivers a structured, intelligent data source ready for interaction. This advancement signals a shift in how video is consumed.

Developer Documentation

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