Can Your Phone Record Video in AV1?

Almost every Android phone sold in the last few years can play AV1 video. Recording in it is a completely different question, and the answer for nearly everyone is no.

Playing a video and creating one are two different jobs, and phone chips are far better at the first.

As of September 2026, one phone family records video in AV1: Google's Pixel 10.

Everything else records in H.264 or H.265, whatever it can play.

Why decoding is easy and recording is not

Decoding means reading a finished file and turning it back into pictures. The hard decisions were made by whoever encoded it, so the phone just follows instructions.

Encoding means making those decisions in real time, thirty or sixty times a second, while the camera is still running. It costs far more silicon and far more battery.

So chipmakers add AV1 decoding first, because every phone needs to play streams, and add encoding much later, because only some people record video the phone itself will publish.

The one phone that does it

Google's Pixel 10 arrived in August 2025 with a Tensor G5 chip that can encode AV1 in hardware, and an option in the camera app to use it.

The payoff is real. A 4K clip recorded in AV1 comes out roughly 25 to 30 percent smaller than the same clip in H.265 at similar quality.

Qualcomm went somewhere else entirely

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, announced in September 2025, is the chip in most of 2026's Android flagships.

It became the first mobile chip to support Samsung's APV capture format, aimed at near-lossless recording for people who edit afterwards. It still does not encode AV1.

MediaTek has not shipped AV1 capture either. So the short version is that the industry agreed on AV1 for watching and has not agreed on anything for recording.

Should you turn it on if you have it?

If you keep your footage on the phone, back it up to Google Photos and watch it on recent devices, AV1 recording saves real storage for no visible cost.

If the clips are going to other people, an older TV, a smart display or an editing program, record H.265 instead. You can always convert later, and converting down is easier than finding a player that will cooperate.

If you are not sure what a given device handles, our codec checker reports what a browser and its hardware can actually decode.

How to get AV1 files without an AV1 camera

Record normally, then convert on a computer. A desktop processor has time and power the phone does not, so the quality is better anyway.

HandBrake is the easiest starting point and has AV1 presets built in. XMedia Recode gives you more control over the settings.

For batch work or scripting, FFmpeg handles it from the command line, and SVT-AV1 is the encoder most of these tools use underneath.

Be patient with the first run. AV1 encoding is slow compared with H.264, which is the same reason your phone will not do it.

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