PNG to AV1 Converter

PNG to AV1 Converter

This tool wraps a still PNG image in an AV1-encoded video clip. AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) is a modern, royalty-free video codec maintained by the Alliance for Open Media — it is not an image format, so the output is a short video that holds your image on screen for a fixed duration, with no motion and no audio. If you actually want a single still image compressed with AV1, you want AVIF instead (see the FAQ) — but if a pipeline, player, or upload form specifically demands an AV1 video file, this is how you produce one from a PNG.

Source: PNG at a Glance

Output: AV1 Video at a Glance

How to Convert PNG to AV1

1. Upload Your PNG File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to add one PNG. The Merge strategy control decides whether multiple images become one clip ("Merge images") or one clip each ("Video per image").
2. Set Image Duration and Background Color: Image Duration sets how long the still holds on screen (default is 5 seconds per frame). Because AV1 video has no alpha channel, transparent PNG areas are flattened onto the Background Color — black by default; pick white or a brand color from the named list to match your design.
3. Pick a Quality Preset and Resolution (Optional): The Preset dropdown ranges up to Very High (the recommended default); Video resolution can keep the original size or scale to a fixed preset such as 720P, 1080P, or 4K. Lower presets and smaller resolutions yield smaller files.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — no sign-up, no watermark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AV1 a video codec or an image format?

AV1 is a video codec, developed by the Alliance for Open Media as a royalty-free successor to VP9. It compresses moving pictures, so the natural output of "PNG to AV1" is a video clip — even when the source is a single still, the result is a short, silent video that displays that image for the duration you set. AV1 is not stored with its own container; encoders wrap the AV1 bitstream inside a standard container such as MP4, MKV, or WebM, and players read the AV1 stream regardless of the wrapper. There is no standard .av1 container file in the way there is for, say, .mp4.

Don't I actually want AVIF for a single image?

Almost certainly, yes. AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) applies the same AV1 compression to a still picture and saves it as a true image with the .avif extension and the image/avif MIME type — it keeps transparency, needs no playback duration, and is what browsers and CMSs expect when you serve a next-gen image. Use AVIF when the goal is a smaller image. Use this PNG-to-AV1 tool only when something specifically requires an AV1 video file. If AVIF is what you meant, convert PNG to AVIF instead.

What happens to my PNG's transparency?

It is flattened. AV1 video has no alpha channel, so any transparent or semi-transparent pixels are composited onto the solid Background Color chosen in step 2 (black by default). Drop shadows and anti-aliased edges that were transparent in the PNG will blend against that background rather than stay see-through. If preserving transparency matters, encode to a format that carries alpha — PNG to WebM uses VP9, which supports an alpha channel that AV1 video does not.

Will the AV1 file play in my browser or on my device?

AV1 decoding is native in Chrome 70+, Firefox 67+, Edge 121+, and Opera 57+, and Safari 17+ added partial support — covering roughly 93% of users per caniuse. Smooth playback on phones and laptops generally depends on a hardware AV1 decoder, which is common in chips from the last few years but absent on older hardware (where playback falls back to slower software decoding). For the widest possible compatibility, including older devices and embedded players, an H.264 MP4 from PNG to MP4 is the safer choice.

Why is the AV1 clip so small compared to other video?

AV1 is one of the most efficient widely deployed codecs: at equal visual quality it typically produces files around 30% smaller than VP9 and about 50% smaller than H.264. For a single still that never changes, the encoder also has almost nothing to update frame to frame, so the bitstream stays tiny. In our testing, a 1920×1080 PNG held for 5 seconds at the Very High preset encodes to roughly a couple hundred kilobytes — a fraction of the same clip as H.264.

Can I make a longer clip or hold the image for a custom time?

Yes — Image Duration controls how long the still stays on screen, with presets from a fraction of a second up to 10 seconds per frame. If you upload several PNGs with the Merge strategy set to "Merge images," each image holds for that duration in sequence, so total length is the number of images multiplied by the per-image duration. The clip is silent regardless of length; AV1 carries no audio in this single-image workflow, and a PNG has no soundtrack to encode.