Short answer: the future of IPTV encoding is arriving unevenly. On the delivery side, AV1 has gone mainstream — YouTube and Netflix now serve large shares of their viewing in it — and Brazil has made VVC part of a national broadcast standard. On the contribution side, where an encoder in your rack or venue sends a feed onward, the practical standard in 2026 is still H.264 and HEVC carried over SRT, with NDI inside buildings. That gap shapes what you should buy now: an encoder with strong HEVC, solid SRT, multiple simultaneous outputs and an active firmware track will stay useful for years, because the newer delivery codecs are usually applied later, by a cloud transcoder, not by the box at the venue.
At a glance
IPTV encoding in late 2026
| Contribution default | HEVC or H.264 over SRT |
| Delivery trend | AV1 widening, usually via cloud transcode |
| Broadcast newcomer | VVC + LCEVC in Brazil's TV 3.0 |
| Inside the building | NDI 6 adds HDR and 10-bit |
| Buy for | HEVC, SRT, dual outputs, firmware support |
Contribution and delivery are different jobs
Most writing about "the future of video encoding" blurs two jobs that run on different timetables.
Contribution is getting a high-quality feed from where it's made to where it's processed: a stadium to a broadcast centre, a church to a streaming platform, a lecture theatre to a campus headend. It happens once per feed, at a high bitrate, and the far end is usually a professional decoder or a cloud ingest point. The encoder is a hardware appliance or a production PC.
Delivery is getting that feed to every viewer: dozens to millions of TVs, phones and set-top boxes, each with its own decoder chip. Delivery codecs are chosen by what the audience's devices can play, and the encoding usually happens in a transcoder — increasingly in the cloud — that takes the contribution feed and produces a ladder of renditions.
New codecs reach delivery first, because that's where bandwidth savings multiply by audience size. Contribution adopts them later, once decoders at the receiving end catch up. Hold onto that and most of the confusion about "future-proof" encoders disappears. If you want the mechanics underneath — frame types, motion estimation, rate control — our explainer on how a streaming encoder works covers them.
Where each codec stands
| Codec | Efficiency (rough) | Playback support, 2026 | In hardware encoders | Role now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H.264 / AVC | Baseline | Universal | Universal | Compatibility fallback; RTMP ingest |
| HEVC / H.265 | ~40–50% fewer bits than H.264 | Near universal on 4K devices | Standard on current appliances | Contribution default; 4K delivery |
| AV1 | ~25–35% fewer bits than HEVC | Most recent TVs and players; gaps on older phones | GPUs since 2022; few dedicated appliances | Large-scale OTT delivery |
| VVC / H.266 | Beyond HEVC, similar class to AV1 or better | Limited outside new broadcast receivers | Specialist broadcast encoders | Next-gen terrestrial TV (Brazil) |
| LCEVC | Enhancement layer on top of another codec | Software decode on many devices | Added to existing pipelines | Boosts a base codec's quality per bit |
The efficiency figures are typical ranges from published comparisons and vary with content. Fast sport, film grain and confetti eat into every codec's advantage.
AV1: the delivery codec that won
AV1 was released royalty-free by the Alliance for Open Media in 2018 and spent several years as a codec everyone discussed and few could decode. That has changed. Industry reporting in 2026 puts AV1 at roughly 30% of Netflix viewing hours by late 2025 and the majority of YouTube's catalogue encoded in it. Hardware decode is now standard in recent smart TVs, Roku, Fire TV and Google TV devices, Apple's A17 Pro and later chips, and Apple's M3 Macs onward. The notable gap is older iPhones, which have no AV1 hardware decoding at all.
Encoding is where AV1 still lags for IPTV operators and venues. NVIDIA RTX 40 and 50 series GPUs, Intel Arc and AMD's RDNA 3 and 4 cards all encode AV1 in hardware, and OBS Studio has been able to send AV1 or HEVC to YouTube over Enhanced RTMP since version 29.1 in 2023. But dedicated contribution appliances — the small boxes with an SDI or HDMI input — overwhelmingly ship with H.264 and HEVC only. A software or GPU-based encoder is the realistic route to AV1 at the source today.
For most buyers, that's fine. AV1's value is in saving bandwidth across a large audience, and the transcoder that builds your delivery ladder can produce AV1 renditions from an HEVC contribution feed. Paying extra for AV1 in the venue box only helps if the receiving end — your platform, your CDN or your own decoders — accepts AV1 ingest.
VVC and LCEVC: the broadcast route
VVC (H.266) was finalised in 2020 as HEVC's successor. Technically it's very strong; commercially it has struggled, largely because of licensing uncertainty and because AV1 captured internet delivery first.
Broadcast has given it a foothold. On 27 August 2025 Brazil's president signed the decree establishing TV 3.0 — branded DTV+ — as the country's next terrestrial standard. It pairs ATSC 3.0's IP-based transport with VVC as the base video codec and MPEG-5 LCEVC as an enhancement layer, plus MPEG-H audio. V-Nova, LCEVC's main developer, reports 4K HDR at about 7.6 Mbps in controlled testing with that combination, and TV Globo ran a live 4K sports test in August 2026.
What that means outside Brazil: VVC encoders exist, but you'll find them in broadcast headend catalogues rather than streaming-gear shops. Unless you're building a terrestrial or operator system that specifies VVC, it shouldn't factor into an encoder purchase in 2026. LCEVC is more interesting to watch, because it layers onto codecs you already use rather than replacing them.
Transport is changing faster than codecs
If you're replacing an encoder, transport changes matter more day to day than codec changes.
SRT has become the default for internet contribution. Haivision open-sourced it in 2017; the SRT Alliance has since grown past 600 member companies. It recovers lost packets, encrypts the stream and copes with unpredictable connections. An encoder without SRT in 2026 is limited to RTMP for internet sends, and RTMP has no error recovery.
RTMP is being extended, not retired. Enhanced RTMP adds HEVC and AV1 to a protocol that originally carried only H.264, which matters because so many platforms still ingest RTMP. Check whether your platform accepts it before relying on it.
RIST is an open alternative to SRT developed by the Video Services Forum, with a following among broadcasters who want a multi-vendor specification. Encoders that support both are increasingly common.
NDI 6, released in April 2024, added HDR and 10-bit support and improved WAN connectivity for hardware devices. Inside a venue or studio, NDI remains the easiest way to make sources discoverable on the network.
SMPTE ST 2110 carries uncompressed video over IP in broadcast facilities, with IPMX as its counterpart for pro AV. These replace SDI cabling within a building; they don't replace an IPTV encoder's job of compressing for distribution. For the protocols that matter to a typical encoder purchase, our guide to HDMI to IP encoders lists which to use where.
What the future doesn't change
Some constraints are physics and arithmetic, and better codecs don't remove them.
Your upload is still the ceiling. A codec that saves 30% helps, but a 20 Mbps stream on a 15 Mbps uplink fails just as before. Encode below sustained capacity, with headroom.
Latency is mostly not the encoder. Segmenting, network buffering and the player buffer dominate glass-to-glass delay. A faster encoder trims tens of milliseconds; a change from standard HLS to SRT or low-latency HLS trims seconds.
Every link must support the format. A 10-bit HDR HEVC feed is wasted if the decoder at the far end is 8-bit. Our article on 4K IPTV encoders works through that chain for 4K specifically, and the same logic applies to any new codec.
Inputs still matter. HDMI runs short and can carry HDCP; SDI runs long and locks in place. If your sources are professional cameras, our piece on SDI IPTV encoders covers the differences.
Buying an encoder that will last
With that background, the checklist for a purchase you won't regret in three years is fairly short.
|
Worth paying for Hardware HEVC, including 10-bit if you might do HDR SRT in caller and listener modes, with encryption Two or more simultaneous outputs (for example SRT to a platform plus multicast locally) A documented API and web interface A firmware history showing regular releases Enough processing headroom for your target resolution and frame rate |
Don't pay extra for, yet AV1 on a venue appliance, unless your ingest accepts it VVC outside a broadcast system that specifies it "8K ready" labels on contribution gear Wi-Fi on a permanent install Unbranded units with no firmware track record |
One habit is worth more than any spec line: before buying, look at the manufacturer's firmware release notes for the previous model. A vendor that added SRT, HEVC or NDI features to older hardware through updates is likely to do the same again. One that shipped a box and never touched it isn't.
And remember the other end. Every encoder needs something that receives it — a platform, a server or a decoder at each screen. If you're sending to displays, our guide to matching an IP to HDMI decoder to your stream covers that side.
Quick answers
Should I buy an AV1 encoder in 2026? Only if the destination accepts AV1 ingest. Most contribution workflows still use HEVC or H.264 over SRT, and AV1 renditions for viewers are usually produced later by a cloud transcoder.
Is H.264 obsolete? No. It remains the universal fallback and the codec most RTMP ingest points expect, but HEVC is the better default for new contribution encoders, especially at 4K.
What is VVC used for? VVC, or H.266, is the base codec of Brazil's TV 3.0 terrestrial standard, signed into law in August 2025, alongside LCEVC. Outside new broadcast systems it has little presence in 2026.
Which streaming protocol should a new encoder support? SRT for internet contribution, RTMP for platform ingest, and MPEG-TS over UDP multicast for many screens on a local network. NDI is useful inside studios and venues.
How do I future-proof an encoder purchase? Choose strong HEVC, SRT, multiple simultaneous outputs, an API and a manufacturer with a track record of firmware updates. Those matter more than early support for codecs your receivers can't yet decode.
AV1 adoption figures come from 2026 industry reporting rather than from the streaming companies' own filings, and device support varies by model year. Brazil TV 3.0 details are from the decree and published technical reports from V-Nova. Efficiency figures are typical published ranges and depend heavily on content. Checked October 2026.