AVIF is a next generation image format standardized by the Alliance for Open Media. This feature supports adding decode support for AVIF content natively into the browser via existing AV1 decoders.
Three primary motivations for supporting AVIF: 1. Reduce bandwidth consumption to load pages faster and reduce overall data consumption: AVIF offers significant file size reduction for images compared with JPEG or WebP. Prior to full optimization, Netflix published results on their test set showing ~50% savings vs JPEG across use cases, going past 60% for 4:4:4 content. (see Doc links for details) 2. HDR color support: AVIF is a path to HDR image support for the web. JPEG is limited in practice to 8-bit color depth. With displays increasingly capable of higher brightness, color bit depth, and color gamuts, web stakeholders are increasingly interested in preserving image data that is lost with JPEG. 3. Ecosystem Interest: Facebook, Netflix, YouTube and others have expressed an interest in shipping AVIF images on the web. Microsoft and Apple were involved in the underlying MIAF specification.
Docs: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/gPse70Ax-iE https://netflixtechblog.com/avif-for-next-generation-image-coding-b1d75675fe4 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/MlTJyKGGtks/m/rTfshC2SBAAJ
Explainers: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/gPse70Ax-iE