Is H.265 being replaced by AV1 or VP9 on Windows and new TV models?

[Chxfgb]

Is H.265 being replaced by AV1 or VP9 on Windows and new TV models? We have had reports of new TVs not playing H.265 MP4 videos. I suspect it is because HEVC want licencing fees. The other two are open source and free.

It's an easy fix on PCs by downloading VLC media player but seems like it could be a giant problem if new TVs cant play H.265 videos. People may have to go back to the old way of using a media player box to play videos on their TVs. Which isn't too bad as they are tiny and only cost ~$40, but its still an extra step and bit of hassle. I assume the manufacturers of the media players are too small to need to pay the royalties to HEVC.

Or is there a way to install the H.265 codec on TVs like we can on PCs? On PCs you just need to install VLC, you don't have to use it. It's just one of various ways to get the codec back on your PC. 

I also wonder if this will affect cameras that film in H.265. Maybe they will need to charge more or start changing their codec too? Might become some kind of restriction like the 30 minute limit in Europe which was a pain for hybrid cameras.

[Video Hummus]

Simple answer: too early to tell. AV1 has a long way to go before it is well supported. A good sign is that both major graphic card companies have AV1 support in new or upcoming products. AV1 will require hardware acceleration for it to be useable for anything, especially encoding. Another key player is Apple, which I'm sure would like to not pay licensing fees for its multi-billion dollar iphone devices. I expect they will be the first to promote and push AV1 in their Apple Silicon line of products (if it isn't already built-in?). YouTube (ie google) is a key developer as well but they won't move on it until there is widespread hardware acceleration for it. They, perhaps more than any company, will benefit from AV1's increased quality at very low bitrates. Amazon (twitch) as well. At higher bitrates AV1 is similar to HEVC in regards to its efficiency.

With all of that said. I would postulate that AV1 will be pushed heavily because of its royalty free nature. All the companies developing it are out to rid themselves of the patent licensing pool nightmare that is HEVC and MPEG-Part 2.

It also seems most of the major camera companies refuse to license ProPres or BRAW or any other edit friendly codec for video capture, except in their higher-end cinema product lines. So we will probably be stuck capturing in compressed delivery codecs for awhile. Which, with proper hardware acceleration, doesn't bother me too much. Saves on my storage requirements and with 8K and beyond it will require some kind of compressed codec to be practical. If only we could have compressed RAW!

[Chxfgb]

Thanks. AV1 apparently offers 30% better compression for videos (according to some random sites I clicked on). Hopefully we can just re-encode our low bitrate H.265 videos, as they are small for streaming and can't afford to have any quality lost at all, so will have to give it a try. We might not have all the masters anymore as they were so big in Pro Res.