AOMedia

AOMedia, or the Alliance for Open Media, is a collaborative consortium formed in 2015 by several technology companies to develop and promote an open, royalty-free video coding format. Its aim is to enable efficient streaming across devices and platforms while reducing licensing costs and fragmentation in the video ecosystem.

Founding members included Mozilla, Google, Cisco, and Netflix, and the alliance has since expanded to include other major players such as Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, IBM, and additional contributors. The organization operates on an open, cross-industry basis to advance audiovisual standards and interoperability.

The principal project of AOMedia is AV1, a video codec designed to provide high compression efficiency without royalty obligations. AV1 was released by the alliance in 2018 as an open, patent-encumbered-free alternative to existing royalty-bearing formats, with the goal of improving streaming quality and bandwidth usage across the internet.

Governance and operations are conducted through a structure that includes member-driven decision making, technical committees, and working groups. The organization promotes an open-source reference implementation and surrounding tools, accompanied by a policy intended to ensure royalty-free licensing for AV1 implementers and adopters.

Impact and adoption have grown as AV1 has gained support in major web browsers and streaming platforms. AV1 is used by various content providers and is supported by a range of hardware and software decoders, contributing to broader accessibility of high-quality video at reduced cost.