AV1 to AVIF Converter

How to Convert AV1 to AVIF Online

1. Upload Your AV1 File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select one or more AV1 video files. Raw .av1 bitstreams and AV1-encoded streams in IVF/OBU containers are accepted. Batch conversion is supported.
2. Pick Frame Selection: Choose Specific Frame to grab a single still at a timestamp (enter seconds, e.g. 2.100), or Multiple Screenshots to extract several frames across the video — useful for thumbnails, contact sheets, and previews.
3. Pick a Quality Preset and Resolution (Optional): Quality Preset defaults to Very High (Recommended); choose Highest for archival, Medium/Low for tight web budgets, or set a specific target file size. Resolution defaults to Keep original — scale by percentage, pick a preset (4320p down to 144p), or enter exact Width × Height.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Frames are decoded and re-encoded as AVIF stills in your browser session — no upload account, no watermark, no sign-up.

Why Convert AV1 to AVIF?

AV1 video and AVIF images share the same compression core: AV1 (AOMedia Video 1), finalized by the Alliance for Open Media in March 2018 with founding members Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix. AVIF is the AV1 Image File Format — it stores AV1-coded keyframes inside a HEIF/ISOBMFF container. So extracting a frame from an AV1 video to AVIF is essentially a re-pack of an intra-coded frame, with optional re-encoding for size/quality targets. Common reasons:

• Web thumbnails at the smallest possible byte cost — Imgix's benchmark on web.dev measured ~60% file-size savings vs JPEG and ~35% vs WebP at matched quality. A poster frame for a 1080p video that would weigh 80 KB as JPEG often lands at 25-35 KB as AVIF.
• HDR-preserving stills from HDR video — AVIF supports 10- and 12-bit color depth and BT.2020 / PQ / HLG transfer functions, so a frame from HDR10 AV1 footage keeps its highlights instead of being clipped to 8-bit SDR like JPEG would force.
• Codec-consistent media pipelines — Sites already serving AV1 video and AVIF posters reuse the same decoder. One codec licence path, one set of color primaries, one quality knob.
• Contact sheets and storyboard frames — Multiple-screenshot mode pulls 5-10 frames across a clip; AVIF keeps the contact sheet under 200-300 KB even at 1080p.
• Archival of "best frame" stills — Pull a single sharp frame from a moving sequence and store it at Highest quality without the JPEG block-noise tax.
• Static fallbacks for video-heavy pages — A poster image or hero still that loads before the video player initialises; AVIF delivers it in roughly half the bytes a JPEG would need.

AV1 (Video) vs AVIF (Still) — How They're Related

The takeaway: an AVIF "extracted" from an AV1 video is the same coding family rendered as an image-format file, plus an alpha channel option you don't have in the source video.

Quality Preset and Output Size Cheat Sheet

Numbers are rough — actual size depends on motion vs detail in the source frame. Use the Specific file size option if you need a hard byte cap.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are AV1 video and AVIF really the same codec?

Yes — same compression engine, different wrapper. AV1 the video codec uses both intra-frame and inter-frame coding to compress a sequence; AVIF uses only the intra-frame (keyframe) path of AV1, packaged in a HEIF/ISOBMFF container. The Alliance for Open Media maintains both specifications. That's why an AV1 keyframe and an AVIF still of the same content come out at nearly the same size when transcoded at the same quality.

Why would I extract an AVIF from AV1 video instead of JPG?

Three reasons. First, size: at matched perceptual quality AVIF is ~50-60% smaller than JPEG (Imgix benchmark on web.dev). Second, HDR: AVIF preserves 10/12-bit HDR with BT.2020 / PQ / HLG; JPEG cannot. Third, alpha: if you need a transparent cutout, AVIF supports it; JPEG doesn't. If you specifically need JPEG (maximum legacy compatibility, decades-old image viewers, DSLR camera workflows), use AV1 to JPG instead.

Will every browser display the AVIF I produce?

caniuse.com/avif currently reports about 94% global support: Chrome 85+ (Aug 2020), Firefox 93+ (Oct 2021), Safari 16+ on iOS / macOS Ventura, Edge 121+ (Jan 2024), Samsung Internet 14+, and Opera 71+. Internet Explorer never supported AVIF. For the ~6% gap, serve a JPEG or WebP fallback via the <picture> element with <source type="image/avif">.

How do I extract one specific frame at a precise timestamp?

Switch Frame Selection to Specific Frame and enter the timestamp in the Seconds field — fractional seconds are accepted (e.g. 4.250 for 4 seconds 250 ms). The decoder seeks to the nearest decodable frame and re-encodes it as AVIF. For a frame-accurate grab, target a keyframe boundary if your AV1 source has GOP markers; otherwise the converter steps to the requested time.

Can I extract several frames at once for a thumbnail strip?

Yes. Pick Multiple Screenshots and the converter samples frames evenly across the duration. The output is a set of AVIF files you can download individually or as a ZIP. For a video player thumbnail bar, 10-20 frames at 240p is plenty; for a storyboard, 5-8 frames at original resolution.

Should I keep original resolution or downscale?

Downscale to whatever you'll actually display. Browsers will resample anyway, and a 4K AVIF served into a 1080-wide image slot wastes 75% of its bytes. Use Resolution Percentage (e.g. 50%) or pick a preset that matches your largest CSS render width. AVIF's compression is more efficient at lower resolutions in absolute KB terms, so a 1280×720 AVIF often beats a 1920×1080 AVIF compressed harder.

Does the AVIF keep HDR if the AV1 source is HDR?

If the source AV1 stream carries HDR metadata (BT.2020 primaries, PQ or HLG transfer, 10-bit pixels), the AVIF output can preserve that. Use the Highest or Very High preset to avoid quantisation that crushes highlights. Note that HDR AVIF only renders correctly on HDR-capable displays in supporting browsers — on SDR screens it tone-maps to a reasonable approximation.

Why does my AVIF look identical to the AV1 keyframe at the same quality?

Because that's effectively what it is. An AV1 keyframe is intra-only AV1 coding; an AVIF is intra-only AV1 coding inside a HEIF wrapper. If the converter doesn't re-encode (some pipelines re-mux the keyframe directly), the bits are nearly identical. When you change Quality Preset or resolution, the converter does a real decode/re-encode, and you'll see size and quality move accordingly.

What's the difference between converting AV1 to AVIF and to WebP or PNG?

AVIF gives the best compression at modern HDR-capable quality. WebP is older but slightly more universally supported (~96% vs ~94%) and produces ~20-30% larger files at the same quality. PNG is lossless but typically 5-10× the size of AVIF for photographic frames; pick PNG only when you need pixel-exact lossless output (e.g. screenshots, UI mocks, charts).

Can I convert other AV1 containers, not just raw .av1?

If your AV1 video is muxed inside MP4, MKV, or WebM, use the matching converter (MP4 to AVIF, WebM to AVIF) — those accept the wrapper directly. The .av1 extension here targets raw bitstream files and IVF/OBU dumps used in encoder testing and AOMedia tooling, which are less common in everyday workflows.