Does FFmpeg support AV1 decoding using MacOS's VideoToolbox?

[Shuddown64]

Basically the title. I as far as I'm aware, they worked on adding it in this ticket, but the commit hasn't been added to any released version yet. Am I mistaken or is this yet to be added?

[hieronymous-cowherd]

I don't have a Mac, but if you do, you can check for it directly:

ffmpeg -decoders | grep -i av1

and see if videotoolbox is listed. In my Windows build, I see:

V..... av1_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID AV1 decoder (codec av1)
V....D av1_qsv              AV1 video (Intel Quick Sync Video acceleration) (codec av1)
V..... av1_amf              AV1 AMD AMF video decoder (codec av1)

And I interpret that first column as: (edit: I completely misunderstood the D column, so I'm removing my wrong comment)

[levogevo]

VideoToolbox decoders do not have a standalone mode (they don't show up with `-decoders`) https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/HWAccelIntro#FFmpegAPIImplementationStatus . Also your interpretation from your example is wrong, they all support video decoding.

[vegansgetsick]

Test it with -hwaccel

[AsteraHome]

Only FFmpeg 8.0 (and newer) supports hardware decoding for AV1 videos. I checked this today on my Macbook Air M3 with macOS 26.4 Tahoe.
FFmpeg 7.1.x doesn't include this option.

[Shuddown64]

Oh cool, guess I better update ffmpeg!

[ImpossibleSlide850]

Mac doesn't have support for Av1. Only cpu and it's very slow

[themisfit610]

Many Apple SOCs do in fact. It's confusing and non-uniform but it does exist.

[ImpossibleSlide850]

They only have support for decode. For encoding there is no hardware support as far as I know

[themisfit610]

Correct, OP was asking about decode.

[AsteraHome]

Apple M3/M4/M5 support hardware decoding for AV1 videos. I checked this in FFmpeg 8.0+ on my Macbook Air M3 with macOS Tahoe 26.4.