The AV1 Codec is a modern, open-source video compression format developed by the Alliance for Open Media. It is designed to deliver high-quality video at lower bitrates, making streaming more efficient and reducing bandwidth usage. AV1 is royalty-free, encouraging widespread adoption across platforms and devices. While it offers significant improvements over older codecs like H.264 and VP9, some devices may experience slower playback if they lack hardware support for AV1 decoding. As a result, AV1 is increasingly used by major streaming services to provide better video quality and cost savings.