Why AV1 Encoding 4K Is Changing Gameplay Video Preservation

When I sat down to capture a no damage run of The Last of Us Part II Remastered on Grounded difficulty, I knew the footage would be punishing in more ways than one. The game's post-apocalyptic Seattle is dense with detail: wet cobblestones reflecting neon signs, the subtle grain of Ellie's jacket, the way HDR highlights bloom on a Molotov explosion. To preserve that 4K HDR image without halving my hard drive, I had to make a choice about the codec. That choice was AV1.

For years, H.265 and VP9 were the standard for high-resolution gameplay archives. They balanced file size and quality well enough for most creators. But as 4K HDR capture became common, the bitrate demands of those older codecs started to feel wasteful. A ten-minute clip at a reasonable bitrate could eat up several gigabytes. That is where av1 encoding 4k comes in, and why it matters for anyone serious about recording gameplay.

What Makes AV1 Different

AV1 is a video compression format developed by the Alliance for Open Media, a group that includes NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and other major tech companies. Unlike H.265, which carries patent licensing costs, AV1 is royalty-free. That alone made it attractive to streaming platforms and hardware manufacturers. But the real draw is efficiency: AV1 can deliver the same visual quality as H.265 at roughly 30 percent lower bitrate, and it beats VP9 by a similar margin.

For a game like The Last of Us Part II Remastered, that efficiency translates directly into practical gains. A 4K HDR capture that would require 50 Mbps with H.265 might look just as good at 35 Mbps with AV1. Over a long no damage run, those savings add up fast. I have personally cut my archive size by nearly half when switching from H.265 to AV1 for the same footage.

The Real-World Trade-Offs

That said, AV1 is not a free lunch. The encoding process is computationally heavy. On my current rig, a single pass of av1 encoding 4k takes three to four times longer than an equivalent H.265 encode. NVIDIA's latest GPUs include hardware encoders that accelerate AV1 significantly, but even then, you are trading time for space. For a live stream, that latency is still too high for most setups. You would not use AV1 for a real-time broadcast of a Grounded difficulty run unless you had a very beefy encoder.

Where AV1 shines is in post-production and archival. After a long session of collecting every artifact and note in The Last of Us Part II Remastered, I sit down with the raw footage and run an encode overnight. By morning, I have a library of 4K HDR clips that take up a fraction of the space they would have with H.265 or VP9. For a creator who keeps hundreds of hours of gameplay, that difference is huge.

Hardware Compatibility and HDR

Another practical concern is playback support. Not every device can decode AV1 smoothly. Most modern smartphones, smart TVs, and streaming sticks handle it well, but older hardware may stutter. If you are sharing gameplay clips with an audience that uses older laptops or consoles, you might want to keep a H.265 backup. But the trend is clear: support is growing fast. HDMI 2.1 displays and the latest graphics cards from NVIDIA and AMD all include AV1 decoding in hardware.

HDR complicates the equation further. The Last of Us Part II Remastered uses wide color gamuts and high peak brightness. Encoding HDR metadata correctly with AV1 requires careful settings. I have found that using a 10-bit encode with proper HDR metadata yields results that look nearly identical to the source when played back on a compatible display. The bitrate savings are especially welcome here, because HDR footage tends to be noisier and needs more bits to avoid banding in gradients like a sunset or a flashlight beam in a dark room.

G-Sync, FreeSync, and Variable Refresh

For those of us who play with variable refresh rate technologies like G-Sync or FreeSync, the encoding workflow has an extra nuance. The capture software must record frames as they are actually displayed, not at a fixed interval. If your monitor is running at 100 fps during a quiet exploration segment and then drops to 60 during a combat encounter, the encoded video should reflect that cadence. AV1 handles variable frame rate content more gracefully than H.265 in my experience, producing fewer artifacts when the frame rate jumps around.

I have tested this by recording a Grounded difficulty encounter where the action slows to a crawl during stealth and then spikes during a chase. With H.265, the encoder sometimes misallocates bits during the transition, causing a brief quality dip. AV1's more sophisticated motion compensation handles those shifts without a hitch. For a no damage run where every dodge and shot matters, that consistency is reassuring.

Streaming vs. Archival

It is worth separating the use cases. For live streaming, H.265 and even H.264 remain more practical because of encoding speed. But for archiving, av1 encoding 4k is becoming the default choice for many serious players. The trade-off is simple: you spend more time encoding once to save space permanently. If you ever need to re-encode that archive for a different platform or bitrate, AV1's quality advantage means you start from a cleaner source.

I have also experimented with VP9 for archival, and while it is open like AV1, its efficiency is not as good. VP9 was designed earlier and does not compress as tightly. For a game that already pushes the PlayStation 5's hardware, I want every bit to count. AV1 gives me that confidence.

Practical Settings for Gameplay

If you are thinking of trying AV1 for your own 4K HDR captures, here are a few settings that have worked well for me:

• Use a constant quality mode (CRF) around 18 to 20 for near-lossless archival. Lower is better but files grow fast.
• Enable 10-bit color depth to preserve HDR gradients. 8-bit will cause banding in dark scenes.
• Set the preset to "slow" or "medium" for a good balance of encoding time and compression. "Fast" saves time but bloats file size.
• If your hardware supports it, use the AV1 hardware encoder from NVIDIA (NVENC) or AMD (VCE) for much faster encodes. Software encoding is still more efficient, but hardware is catching up.
• Always verify playback on your target device. What looks perfect on your monitor may stutter on a TV or a phone.

These settings have let me archive a full collectibles run of The Last of Us Part II Remastered, every note and trading card, in a fraction of the space I would have needed a few years ago.

The Bottom Line

AV1 is not a magic bullet. It requires patience during encoding and a modern playback ecosystem. But for anyone who values their hard drive space and wants to preserve 4K HDR gameplay at the highest quality, it is the best option available right now. The support from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel means the hardware gap is closing every generation. HDMI 2.1 and the latest displays already handle it natively.

When I look back at my captures from a Grounded difficulty run, I know the footage will hold up. The bitrate savings let me keep more runs, more experiments, and more memories without buying another drive. That is the real value of av1 encoding 4k: it gives you room to keep playing.