vcatd-dav1d-plugin

AV1 software decoder plugin for VCAT (Video Codec Acid Test).

Wraps dav1d (VideoLAN AV1 decoder) as a VCAT decoder plugin, loaded dynamically by the VCAT app at runtime. Declares MIME type video/av01.

Prerequisites

• JDK 17+
• Android SDK with NDK 27.0.12077973 and CMake 3.22+
• meson and ninja (dav1d's build system)

dav1d is built from source, not bundled: the Gradle build clones it at a pinned release into app/build/dav1d/src and meson-installs a static libdav1d.a per ABI into app/build/dav1d/install-<abi>/. Nothing prebuilt is carried in the repo.

The pin is 1.5.3 — the release matching the prebuilt this plugin previously shipped, so switching to a source build did not change decoder behavior. Since VCAT measures decoder performance, moving it is a deliberate act:

./gradlew :vcatd-dav1d-plugin:dist -Pdav1dRef=1.5.4
./gradlew :vcatd-dav1d-plugin:dist -PDAV1D_SRC=/path/to/dav1d

Build

./gradlew :vcatd-dav1d-plugin:dist

Output: app/build/outputs/dist/vcatd-dav1d-plugin.aar

The dist task post-processes the AAR: it extracts classes.jar, runs D8 to produce classes.dex (minApi 29), then repacks the AAR with the DEX injected — required for plugin loading by the host app.

Using the plugin with VCAT

Copy the AAR into VCAT's decoder-plugins/ folder before building the app:

cp app/build/outputs/dist/vcatd-dav1d-plugin.aar ../vcat-d/decoder-plugins/

Dependencies

Dependency	License	Source
dav1d	BSD-2-Clause	videolan/dav1d
vcatd-decoder-plugin-api	GPL-3.0-or-later	Maven Central

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. For commercial licensing contact: legal@roncatech.com