"Set for a year-end release, AV2 is not only an upgrade to the widely adopted AV1 but also a foundational piece of AOMedia’s future tech stack.
AV2, a generation leap in open video coding and the answer to the world’s growing streaming demands, delivers significantly better compression performance than AV1. AV2 provides enhanced support for AR/VR applications, split-screen delivery of multiple programs, improved handling of screen content, and an ability to operate over a wider visual quality range. AV2 marks a milestone on the path to an open, innovative future of media experiences."
All these naysaysers in the comments here… It’s obvious you have to keep the development pipeline moving. Just because we have one free codec at the stage of hardware support now does not mean the world can stop. There are always multiple codecs out there at various stages of adoption, that’s just normal.