| --- |
| license: cc-by-4.0 |
| task_categories: |
| - tabular-classification |
| tags: |
| - webcodecs |
| - video-processing |
| - hardware-acceleration |
| - telemetry |
| - browser-support |
| - av1 |
| - h265 |
| - hevc |
| - vp9 |
| - h264 |
| pretty_name: WebCodecs Codec Support Dataset |
| size_categories: |
| - 1B<n<10B |
| configs: |
| - config_name: default |
| data_files: |
| - split: train |
| path: data/*.parquet |
| --- |
| |
| # The Codec Support Dataset |
|
|
| **Version 2026-10-01** |
|
|
| ## Dataset Summary |
|
|
| This dataset contains real-world audio and video codec support data passively collected from **7,655,853 unique user sessions** at [free.upscaler.video](https://free.upscaler.video), an open-source browser-based video upscaler with ~700,000 monthly active users. Each session uses the WebCodecs API (`VideoEncoder.isConfigSupported()` / `VideoDecoder.isConfigSupported()` and their audio equivalents) to test encoding and decoding support for a random sample of ~300 out of 1,087 codec strings across the major codec families (H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9, AV1, AAC, Opus, etc.). |
|
|
| * **Total Tests:** 2,434,549,264 |
| * **Sessions:** 7,655,853 |
| * **Unique Codecs:** 1,087 |
| * **Collection Period:** January 2, 2026 – October 1, 2026 |
| * **Format:** Parquet (zstd), one file per month, 3.85 GB total |
| * **DOI (all versions):** [10.5281/zenodo.19187466](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19187466) |
|
|
| The data is summarized interactively at [webcodecsfundamentals.org](https://webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-support/), with a per-codec [support table](https://webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-support-table/) and an [analysis of AV1, HEVC, VP9 and H.264 support](https://webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-analysis-2026/). |
|
|
| ## Files |
|
|
| | File | Days | Rows | |
| |------|------|------| |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-01.parquet` | 30 | 138,596,578 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-02.parquet` | 27 | 81,443,298 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-03.parquet` | 31 | 201,598,644 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-04.parquet` | 30 | 197,135,832 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-05.parquet` | 31 | 236,605,038 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-06.parquet` | 30 | 281,177,508 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-07.parquet` | 31 | 343,646,700 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-08.parquet` | 31 | 454,035,630 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-09.parquet` | 30 | 484,965,900 | |
| | `data/codec-support-2026-10.parquet` | 1 | 15,344,136 | |
|
|
| `SHA256SUMS` contains checksums for every file. |
|
|
| ## Dataset Structure |
|
|
| One row per codec test (one codec string tested in one session). Rows from the same session are contiguous. |
|
|
| | Column | Type | Description | |
| |--------|------|-------------| |
| | `session_id` | string | Unique ID of the test session | |
| | `timestamp` | timestamp (ms, UTC) | When the session's tests were run | |
| | `user_agent` | string | Full browser user agent string | |
| | `browser` | string | Browser family (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, Unknown) | |
| | `platform_raw` | string | Raw `navigator.platform` value | |
| | `platform` | string | Normalized platform (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Other) | |
| | `codec` | string | WebCodecs codec string tested (e.g. `av01.0.16M.08`) | |
| | `encoder_supported` | bool | Whether the encoder supports this codec | |
| | `decoder_supported` | bool, nullable | Whether the decoder supports this codec; null if not tested | |
|
|
| `decoder_supported` is null for sessions before January 14, 2026, when decoder testing was added (98% of sessions include decoder data). `browser` is reported by the client; all Chromium-based browsers other than Edge (Brave, Opera, Samsung Internet, etc.) are grouped as Chrome. |
|
|
| ### Platform Normalization |
|
|
| * Win32, Win64, WIN32 ➔ **Windows** |
| * MacIntel, MacOS, Mac OS ➔ **macOS** |
| * iPhone, iPad ➔ **iOS** |
| * Linux armv7l, Linux armv8l, Linux armv81, Linux armv6l, Linux arm, Android, Android64 ➔ **Android** |
| * Linux, Linux x86_64, Linux aarch64, Linux amd64, Linux i686 ➔ **Linux** |
| * Anything else (e.g. HarmonyOS, blank, spoofed values) ➔ **Other** (18 sessions) |
| |
| ## Usage |
| |
| At 2.4 billion rows the dataset is too large to load into pandas; query the files in place with [DuckDB](https://duckdb.org/), Polars or Spark: |
| |
| ```python |
| import duckdb |
| |
| con = duckdb.connect() |
| con.sql("CREATE VIEW tests AS SELECT * FROM read_parquet('data/*.parquet')") |
| |
| # Encoder and decoder support by codec |
| con.sql(""" |
| SELECT codec, |
| round(100 * avg(encoder_supported::INT), 2) AS encoder_pct, |
| round(100 * avg(decoder_supported::INT), 2) AS decoder_pct, |
| count(*) AS tests |
| FROM tests |
| GROUP BY codec |
| ORDER BY encoder_pct DESC |
| """).show() |
| ``` |
| |
| With Hugging Face `datasets`, use streaming rather than downloading everything up front: |
|
|
| ```python |
| from datasets import load_dataset |
| |
| ds = load_dataset("katana-video/webcodecs-codec-support", split="train", streaming=True) |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## Dataset Creation & Methodology |
|
|
| Data is collected anonymously in the background on [free.upscaler.video](https://free.upscaler.video). No personally identifiable information is collected: only the user agent, `navigator.platform`, and codec test results. A full description of the collection methodology is [here](https://free.upscaler.video/research/methodology/). |
|
|
| ### Known Limitations |
|
|
| * **Sessions, not devices.** Percentages are per session and reflect free.upscaler.video's traffic mix (77% Chrome, 50% Windows, 30% Android). Reweight by your own traffic for other applications. |
| * **WebCodecs API support, not hardware support.** A codec the device supports may be missing from the WebCodecs API (e.g. Firefox on Android does not expose WebCodecs), so the numbers are conservative. |
| * **`isConfigSupported()` only.** Results do not measure encode/decode performance or quality. |
| * **Collection gap.** Very few sessions were recorded between February 8 and February 20, 2026 (none on February 19) due to a collection outage. |
|
|
| ### 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 |
|
|
| * **Producer:** Katana Video Inc. |
| * **Author:** Samrat Bhattacharyya |
|
|
| ## Citation Information |
|
|
| ```bibtex |
| @dataset{upscaler_codec_dataset_2026, |
| title = {The Codec Support Dataset}, |
| author = {Bhattacharyya, Samrat}, |
| year = {2026}, |
| version = {2026-10-01}, |
| publisher = {Zenodo}, |
| doi = {10.5281/zenodo.19187466}, |
| url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19187466}, |
| note = {2.43B codec tests from 7.66M sessions} |
| } |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## License |
|
|
| [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Credit "The Codec Support Dataset" with a link to [webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-support](https://webcodecsfundamentals.org/datasets/codec-support/). |
|
|
