What value do you think your comment adds to the conversation? H.265 is a widely-used standard which millions of devices support and since it's older than AV1 anyone who cares about, for example, iOS users has the choice of using either H.265 or H.264 but not AV1. Even if you're using Chrome or Firefox on a desktop, you often don't want AV1 unless you have a burly CPU, aren't running on battery, and don't mind hearing your CPU fans (a quick search will show this is true even for WebM because millions of people still use devices which have hardware H.264 but require CPU-based decoding for WebM). If that's not true for you, a high-quality open-source H.265 encoder is a great tool.
Here are the current support stats — note the distinct lack of a common format newer than MPEG-4 even before you consider hardware support:
I’m aware of that but did you notice where I mentioned iOS and linked to https://caniuse.com/#feat=hevc at the bottom? That was why I mentioned the lack of a common option beyond MPEG-4 — iOS has H.265 support in hardware so if you want a newer codec that’s your only option for a fairly large group of people, especially in the United States, and it’s where battery life matters a great deal.
I think you're better off going with VP9 as your next-gen codec for now rather than HEVC despite the lack of iOS support.
That's what Twitch is doing, for example. They say VP9 is a particularly good fit for them because they're getting a 25% bitrate reduction over H.264 in live streaming, they don't want the licensing headaches of HEVC, and because most of their viewers are using Firefox or Chrome on the desktop.
Apple joined the Alliance for Open Media so they'll be adding AV1 support eventually. It'd be good if they also added VP9 support, especially because some of their laptops already have hardware decoding for VP9 in the CPU. Most Android phones have VP9 support so iOS joining in would be great.
If you can ship a custom decoder, don’t care about battery life, and have enough CPU headroom, yes, VP9 is an option. For everyone else, until AV1 hardware ships it’d be better to stick with H.264 than use VP9 if you can’t figure out a way to make H.265 work in your business.
VP9 has broader decoder support than H.265. Even when you don't have a hardware decoder, the software decoding for VP9 is not bad. I play VP9 video in VLC on my iPhone 7 and I have survived to tell the tale. It's not all doom and gloom.
Yes, an iPhone CPU is usually fast enough not to drop frames but if you care about battery life it’s not competitive. Again, I’m not saying that VP9 is bad but rather that anyone serious needs to support both formats until AV1 has MPEG-4 levels of pervasiveness, especially if you’re publishing on the web.
No, if you're publishing on the web using VP9 is the better choice. VP9 is supported in more browsers and there's no point having the licensing hassle of H.265. And as Netflix found, VP9 outperforms H.265 by 12% with the right encoder:
It isn't a question of patents, it's a question of licensing. VP9 and AV1 patents are licensed under royalty-free terms and free for all use-cases. Royalty-free formats are better for the health of the internet and the computing industry generally. I'll always use royalty-free formats where I can. It's just simpler.
Here are the current support stats — note the distinct lack of a common format newer than MPEG-4 even before you consider hardware support:
https://caniuse.com/#feat=mpeg4
https://caniuse.com/#feat=hevc
https://caniuse.com/#feat=webm
https://caniuse.com/#feat=av1