AV1, AI, GPU vs. VPU. All important. All real. But none of them explain what’s actually slowing the industry down. The data does.
From Netint’s 2026 State of Video Encoding Survey (286 professionals across streaming, broadcast, and enterprise), the primary constraint is no longer technical. It’s organisational.
77 percent of teams are blocked by budget or capacity constraints
Only a fraction cite core technology limitations
30 percent don’t track total cost of ownership
30 percent operate without formal quality metrics
This is not an infrastructure problem. It’s an execution problem.
For years, the industry focused on capability – faster encoding, scalable workflows, new codecs. Those problems are largely solved. The constraint now is deployment: can teams operationalise what already exists, measure cost vs. quality, and move systems into production?
When teams are small, budgets are tight, and systems are complex, even the best technology doesn’t get implemented.
That’s the bottleneck: not compute, not codecs, not AI – time to value.
The gap is widening. The leaders are not those with the most advanced stacks, but those that simplify deployment, reduce operational overhead, align engineering with business metrics, and move from evaluation to production faster. Everyone else stays stuck testing.
The implication is clear. The industry doesn’t need more capability. It needs a faster path to using it. Solutions that reduce complexity will win.
Read the full report: https://netint.com/2026-state-of-video-encoding/
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