When the Alliance for Open Media announced a dedicated software group to push its in-house Scalable Video Technology for AV1 (abbreviated as SVT-AV1) in August 2020, developed to remove computational complexity trade-offs from AV1 encoder implementations, we asked one simple question – why not use LCEVC? It appears other industry observers are beginning to ask the same question – waking up to the idea of a software-based booster technology capable of enhancing any base codec, including AV1. With LCEVC rooted in MPEG standardization, while AOM has done almost everything to distance itself from the MPEG and ISO groups, embracing the V-Nova-developed technology would be a game-changing about-face from AOM. Faultline has received the occasional unsubstantiated claim that certain AOM members…