The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 may offer AV1 decoding
So, what is AV1 decoding, and why is it important? Well, it’s the next-gen video codec developed by the Alliance for open Media. It comes with advanced compression tech, and a royalty-free model. It does offer battery-efficient playback, just like most video codecs, though it does depend on hardware encoding support, of course. Such hardware encoding is not exactly widespread for this codec, but the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 may bring it for smartphones. Do note that the source didn’t particularly mention the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but it said that native AV1 decoding is coming to Qualcomm’s “upcoming flagship Snapdragon mobile processor”. That being said, this could also be the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+, or whatever Qualcomm ends up calling it, but it’s highly unlikely. This is a major new feature, and we don’t really see it in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+.
This SoC is expected to arrive at the end of 2022
The company’s ‘Plus’ chips usually come with higher clock speeds, or something similar, but don’t really bring brand new features to the table. On top of that, the source did say that the chip in question is coming “at the end of this year at the earliest”, which also suggests the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Qualcomm’s next-gen flagship Snapdragon chips do launch at the very end of the year. The ‘Plus’ model comes at some point in the second half of the year, usually closer to mid-year. Protocol also mentioned that the codename of the chip in question is the ‘SM8550’. Well, the codename of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is ‘SM8450’, so it fits. Do note that AV1 video can already be played on a ton of Android devices, but through software decoding. Hardware decoding would improve battery life drastically when it comes to such video content.
