YouTube could cause battery life, smoothness issues on older Galaxy devices

Updates usually bring new features and performance improvements. However, sometimes updates also bring performance and reliability issues. One such issue could come to YouTube on older or affordable Galaxy phones and tablets.

Older and lower-end Galaxy phones could have performance issues on YouTube with AV1 decoding

Google’s Arif Dikici (Android Video and Image Codecs Team) revealed that Android will now use the AV1 decoder known as ‘libdav1d’ for YouTube. This codec was created by the team behind the popular VLC player. All devices running Android 12 or newer have software support for the codec once they have received the March 2024 Google Play System Update.

While this update will bring the improved AV1 codec that makes videos look good at lower bitrates (or slower internet connections), not every phone has native hardware support for the AV1 codec. Most mid-range and high-end phones that don’t support AV1 hardware decoding use the software decoder.

By default, apps use the existing AV1 decoder called ‘libgav1’ instead of the newer ‘dav1d’ decoder. To use the newer decoder, apps have to request it specifically. This is the same thing that YouTube started doing immediately after the March 2024 Google Play System Update was released.

So, when the older AV1 decoder is used, older affordable and mid-range phones may experience performance issues and skipped frames. Moreover, some users have expressed concerns (via Android Police and Mishaal Rahman) that their phones may use more battery power while using the older decoder on a software level.

Since not everyone has received or installed the March 2024 Google Play System Update, people with older and less powerful Galaxy phones and tablets might notice performance slowdowns in the coming weeks.