What’s the logic with changing the title here from the actual article title it was originally submitted with “AV1 — Now Powering 30% of Netflix Streaming” to the generic and not at all representative title it currently has “AV1: a modern open codec”? That is neither the article title nor representative of the article content.
AV1 is good enough that the cost of not licensing might outweigh the cost of higher bandwidth. And it sounds like Netflix agrees with that.
"AV1 open video codec now powers 30% of Netflix viewing, adds HDR10+ and film grain synthesis"
AV1 definitely is missing some techniques patented by h264 and h265, but AV2 is coming around now that all the h264 innovations are patent free (and now that there's been another decade of research into new cutting edge techniques for it).
Re: HDR - not the same thing. HDR has been around for decades and every TV in every electronics store blasts you with HDR10 demos. It's well known. AV1 is extremely niche and deserves 2 words to describe it.
It's fine that you haven't heard of it before (you're one of today's lucky 10,000!) but it really isn't that niche. YouTube and Netflix (from TFA) also started switching to AV1 several years ago, so I would expect it to have similar name recognition to VP9 or WebM at this point. My only interaction with video codecs is having to futz around with ffmpeg to get stuff to play on my TV, and I heard about AV1 a year or two before it was published.
One word, or acronym, just isn't enough to describe anything on this modern world.
And now HN administration tend to editorialize in their own way.
I'm not trying to be elitist, but this is "Hacker News", not CNN or BBC. It should be safe to assume some level of computer literacy.
We generally try to remove numbers from titles, because numbers tend to make a title more baity than it would otherwise be, and quite often (e.g., when reporting benchmark test results) a number is cherry-picked or dialed up for maximum baitiness. In this case, the number isn't exaggerated, but any number tends to grab the eye more than words, so it's just our convention to remove number-based titles where we can.
The thing with this title is that the number isn't primarily what the article is about, and in fact it under-sells what the article really is, which is a quite-interesting narrative of Netflix's journey from H.264/AVC, to the initial adoption of AV1 on Android in 2020, to where it is now: 30% adoption across the board.
When we assess that an article's original title is baity or misleading, we try to find a subtitle or a verbatim sentence in the article that is sufficiently representative of the content.
The title I chose is a subtitle, but I didn't take enough care to ensure it was adequately representative. I've now chosen a different subtitle which I do think is the most accurate representation of what the whole article is about.
Our title policy is pretty simple and attuned for maximum respect to the post’s author/publisher and the HN audience.
We primarily just want to retain the title that was chosen by the author/publisher, because it’s their work and they are entitled to have such an important part of their work preserved.
The only caveat is that if the title is baity or misleading, we’ll edit it, but only enough that it’s no longer baity or misleading. That’s because clickbait and misleading titles are disrespectful to the audience.
Any time you see a title that doesn’t conform to these principles, you’re welcome to email us and ask us to review it. Several helpful HN users do this routinely.
you might not know what AV1 is, and that's fine, but the headline doesn't need to contain all the background information it is possible to know about a topic. if you need clarification, click the link.
h264 is a very good codec.
"We primarily just want to retain the title that was chosen by the author/publisher, because it’s their work and they are entitled to have such an important part of their work preserved."
Nobody said the title had to be deleted. But when it doesn't convey WHAT the "thing" is, it needs augmentation. Currently on page 4 there's an example that not only conveys nothing, but DOESN'T respect the actual title you find on the linked page. The HN post is entitled merely "tunni.gg".
But if you click on that, you get to a page that says, "Expose localhost to the internet." But the poster couldn't be bothered to put that important and interesting information in the title. Instead, the title is worthless.
You see plenty of similarly and intentionally obscure titles on HN daily. Try calling them out and see what happens.
> people who point out obscure titles are downvoted in most cases, and eventually shadow-banned
Nothing like this happens! Nobody gets banned for pointing out anything about titles. People only get banned ("shadow" or otherwise) for serial abuse or trolling (and only after multiple warnings), or for spamming. Comments only get downvoted if more people disagree than agree with the title suggestion or the way it's suggested. It's no big deal. It's how opinions are expressed and debated on HN.
> The HN post is entitled merely "tunni.gg".
That's Tunnl.gg [1], and it would have been fine for the page's heading to be added to the HN title (that routinely happens when software projects on Github are submitted). It's also not terrible for just the project name to be there, because the name of the project (a variant of the word "Tunnel") hints at what it is. But we're not dogmatic about it, and anybody could have emailed us (hn@ycombinator.com) to suggest a better title we would have given it due consideration and replied appreciatively. We do that multiple times each day.
> You see plenty of similarly and intentionally obscure titles on HN daily. Try calling them out and see what happens.
“Intentionally obscure” isn't the right framing. Maybe we don't always want to clobber people over the head with obviousness. The joy of surprising discovery is an important part of the HN experience.
But the key principles – (a) respect the original work of the author/publisher and (b) don't mislead or disrespect the HN audience with clickbait or false information – have proven to be the most stable and defensible over time. There's still plenty of room for discernment in the way those principles are applied on a case-by-case basis.
[1] >>46145902