---
layout: default
category: "OBS"
title: "High Quality Recording (in OBS Studio) with AV1"
comments: true
date: "2023-05-05"
redirect_from:
- /guides/high-quality-recordings/svt-av1/
- /guides/high-quality-recordings/aom-av1/
---

<p class="block">The world called for a more efficient royalty-free codec, and AV1 is the answer. It is significantly better than VP9 at the same task, and has a significant reduction in decoding complexity, putting the complexity on the encoding side instead. Given that it is a more recent codec, support for it is still relatively small - though software decoders can handle it just fine on most devices.</p>

<details class="block" open>
	<summary>
		<h1>AMD AMF</h1>
	</summary>
	<details class="block">
		<summary>
			<h2>Built-In</h2>
		</summary>
		<figure class="block">
			<table class="block">
				<thead>
					<tr>
						<th>Option</th>
						<th width="16%">Lossless</th>
						<th width="16%">Near Lossless</th>
						<th width="16%">Indistinguishable</th>
						<th width="16%">High Quality</th>
						<th width="16%">Acceptable Quality</th>
					</tr>
				</thead>
				<tr>
					<td>Rate Control</td>
					<td rowspan="255" colspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; text-align: center;">N/A</td>
					<td colspan="255">CQP</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>CQ Level</td>
					<td>5 - 10</td>
					<td>11 - 16</td>
					<td>17 - 22+</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Profile</td>
					<td colspan="255">Speed</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Max B-frames</td>
					<td colspan="255">Any, but less may be faster</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>AMF/FFmpeg Options</td>
					<td colspan="255">preanalysis=false filler_data=false skip_frame=false</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>OBS Color Format</td>
					<td colspan="255">NV12 (SDR), P010 (HDR)</td>
				</tr>
			</table>
			<figcaption>For empty fields, look further left.</figcaption>
		</figure>
	</details>
	<h3 class="block">Additional Notes</h3>
	<ul class="block">
		<li>AMDs AV1 encoder is only capable of 4:2:0.</li>
		<li>You can freely adjust the Key-Frame Interval for anything but Lossless. Lossless will (and should) always produce an IDR-Frame every frame.</li>
	</ul>
</details>

<details class="block" open>
	<summary>
		<h1>Intel QSV</h1>
	</summary>
	<details class="block">
		<summary>
			<h2>Built-In</h2>
		</summary>
		<figure class="block">
			<table class="block">
				<thead>
					<tr>
						<th>Option</th>
						<th width="16%">Lossless</th>
						<th width="16%">Near Lossless</th>
						<th width="16%">Indistinguishable</th>
						<th width="16%">High Quality</th>
						<th width="16%">Acceptable Quality</th>
					</tr>
				</thead>
				<tr>
					<td>Rate Control</td>
					<td rowspan="255" colspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; text-align: center;">N/A</td>
					<td colspan="255">CQP</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>CQQ</td>
					<td>5 - 10</td>
					<td>11 - 16</td>
					<td>17 - 22+</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Target Usage</td>
					<td colspan="255">veryfast</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Profile</td>
					<td colspan="255">high</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Keyframe Interval</td>
					<td colspan="255">1</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Latency</td>
					<td colspan="255">normal</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>OBS Color Format</td>
					<td colspan="255">NV12 (SDR), P010 (HDR)</td>
				</tr>
			</table>
			<figcaption>For empty fields, look further left.</figcaption>
		</figure>
	</details>
	<h3 class="block">Additional Notes</h3>
	<ul class="block">
		<li>Intel QSV AV1 is only capable of 4:2:0 encoding.</li>
		<li>Intels QSV AV1 encoder is tied to CPU usage, so it may perform worse than x265 would.</li>
		<li>You can freely adjust the Key-Frame Interval for anything but Lossless. Lossless will (and should) always produce an IDR-Frame every frame.</li>
	</ul>
</details>

<details class="block" open>
	<summary>
		<h1>NVIDIA NVENC</h1>
	</summary>
	<details class="block">
		<summary>
			<h2>Built-In</h2>
		</summary>
		<figure class="block">
			<table class="block">
				<thead>
					<tr>
						<th>Option</th>
						<th width="16%">Lossless</th>
						<th width="16%">Near Lossless</th>
						<th width="16%">Indistinguishable</th>
						<th width="16%">High Quality</th>
						<th width="16%">Acceptable Quality</th>
					</tr>
				</thead>
				<tr>
					<td>Rate Control</td>
					<td colspan="2" rowspan="255" style="vertical-align: middle; text-align: center;">N/A</td>
					<td colspan="255">CQP</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>CQ Level</td>
					<td>5 - 10</td>
					<td>11 - 16</td>
					<td>17 - 22+</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Preset</td>
					<td colspan="255">P1: Fastest (Lowest Quality)</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Tuning</td>
					<td colspan="255">High Quality</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Multipass Mode</td>
					<td colspan="255">Single Pass</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Profile</td>
					<td colspan="255">main</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Look-ahead</td>
					<td colspan="255">Disabled</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Psycho Visual Tuning</td>
					<td colspan="255">Disabled</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Max B-frames</td>
					<td colspan="255">0</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>OBS Color Format</td>
					<td colspan="255">NV12 (SDR), P010 (HDR)</td>
				</tr>
			</table>
			<figcaption>For empty fields, look further left.</figcaption>
		</figure>
	</details>
	<h3 class="block">Additional Notes</h3>
	<ul class="block">
		<li>NVIDIA NVENC AV1 is only capable of 4:2:0 encoding.</li>
		<li>You can freely adjust the Key-Frame Interval for anything but Lossless. Lossless will (and should) always produce an IDR-Frame every frame.</li>
	</ul>
</details>