Published October 2, 2026 | Version 2026-10-01
Dataset Open

WebCodecs Codec Support Dataset

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Katana Video Inc.

Description

WebCodecs Codec Support Dataset — Version 2026-10-01

This dataset contains real-world audio and video codec support data from 7,655,853 real user sessions at free.upscaler.video, using the WebCodecs API to detect both encoding and decoding support for 1,087 codec variants across the following audio and video codecs:

Video:

  • h264
  • h265
  • vp8
  • vp9
  • av1

Audio:

  • aac
  • opus
  • mp3
  • flac
  • vorbis
  • pcm
  • a-law / µ-law

The data is compiled and summarized on the project website, webcodecsfundamentals.org, which provides a global overview of real-world support for codecs like AV1 or H.265 across operating systems and browsers.

This dataset contains the underlying data, with 2.43 billion codec compatibility tests from 7.66 million unique user sessions collected between January and October 2026.

Files

File Description
data/codec-support-YYYY-MM.parquet One Parquet file per month (10 files, 3.85 GB total, zstd-compressed)
README.md Full documentation, including usage examples
SHA256SUMS  Checksums for all data files

At 2.4 billion rows the dataset is too large to load into pandas; query the files in place with DuckDB, Polars or Spark (see `README.md`).

Schema

Column Description
session_id Unique ID of the test session (new in this version)
timesamp Timestamp (UTC) of when the test was performed
user_agent Full browser user agent string
browser Browser family (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, Unknown)
platform_raw Raw platform identifier from `navigator.platform`
platform Normalized platform (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Other)
codec WebCodecs codec string tested (e.g., `av01.0.01M.08`)
encoder_supported Whether VideoEncoder supports codec (true/false)
decoder_supported Whether VideoDecoder supports codec (true/false/null)

 

Example Rows

 

timestamp browser platform_raw platform codec encoder_supported decoder_supported
2026-01-05T00:54:11.570Z Edge Win32 Windows av01.0.01M.08 true null
2026-01-16T23:58:08.560Z Chrome Win32 Windows avc1.64040c false true

Note: `decoder_supported` is null for sessions before Jan 14, 2026. The second example shows a codec that can decode but not encode.

Quick Stats

- Total Tests: 2,434,549,264
- Sessions: 7,655,853
- Unique Codecs: 1,087
- Collection Period: January 2, 2026 – October 1, 2026
- Data Source: free.upscaler.video (~700,000 monthly active users)
- Encoder Data: All 7,655,853 sessions
- Decoder Data: Sessions from Jan 14, 2026 onwards (98% of sessions)

Note: very few sessions were recorded between February 8 and February 20, 2026 due to a collection outage.

Platform Normalization

The `platform` column applies the following normalization:

- Win32, Win64, WIN32 → Windows
- MacIntel, MacOS, Mac OS → macOS
- iPhone, iPad → iOS
- Linux armv6l/armv7l/armv8l/armv81, Linux arm, Android* → Android
- Linux, Linux x86_64, Linux aarch64, Linux amd64, Linux i686 → Linux
- Anything else → **Other** (18 sessions)

The `platform_raw` column contains the original `navigator.platform` value.

Changes from Version 2026-03-22

- 7,655,853 sessions (was 1,142,586); collection period extended to October 1, 2026
- Parquet instead of CSV (3.85 GB instead of 69.4 GB uncompressed)
- New `session_id` column
- Platform normalization extended to rare `navigator.platform` values, with an "Other" bucket

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0)

You are free to:

- Share and redistribute in any format
- Adapt, remix, and build upon the data
- Use commercially

Under the following terms:

Attribution: Credit "The Codec Support Dataset" with a link to webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-support

Files

README.md

Files (3.8 GB)

Name Size
md5:83f1a6ebbe5635710e8b7d3f8275ff6f
217.2 MB Download
md5:4085d0a18e2459a38ab6b07f47c5527e
128.7 MB Download
md5:4fbab2b278dbf89728bc0dc5d730258f
318.2 MB Download
md5:0903663f09851cfa17276765ff061a3f
311.3 MB Download
md5:01128445497f9589705f71a382d00cf5
374.1 MB Download
md5:511fab84159923d1c29e051d5a640cbb
444.4 MB Download
md5:1677b9b7e0c3ccb20209ae4aec5b4062
543.6 MB Download
md5:2fdb1ab0b95fdf0090b5eb2ef4878e0a
718.3 MB Download
md5:ff701bf73630201dec640816117e3e3e
766.3 MB Download
md5:c778c300e0c8e2d4c1a1163344e157a7
24.2 MB Download
md5:19bd58f8c432a55e0d3c7af4bd4e0538
6.8 kB Preview Download
md5:dd7ab0427027cac0ee48f564c3ebfbe8
1.0 kB Download

Additional details

Related works

Documents
Software documentation: https://webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-support/ (URL)
Is described by
Workflow: https://free.upscaler.video/research/methodology/ (URL)

Dates

Collected
2026-01-01
Collection Start
Collected
2026-10-02
Collection end

Software

Repository URL
http://github.com/sb2702/free-ai-video-upscaler
Programming language
Python
Development Status
Active

Audiovisual core

Resource creation technique
https://free.upscaler.video/research/methodology/