The cross-platform OBS software that is popular with game streamers and others live-recording their desktops has finally landed support for AV1 video encoding using Linux's Video Acceleration API (VA-API) interface.

Opened last May was a merge request for the OBS FFmpeg code to add AV1 support for VA-API. As of Tuesday evening that code was merged.

The code has successfully tested the VA-API AV1 encoding using the Mesa drivers. VA-API AV1 encoding is available with AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics and Intel Arc Graphics when it comes to those with open-source Mesa driver support.

It's unfortunate that it has taken until into 2024 to get this code merged, but nevertheless exciting for the next OBS feature release.