>Reference implementations are not about performance, they are documentation. They are not supposed to be used for anything else but documentation.
That is valid for all H.262 , H.263, H.264 and H.265, as well as the up coming H.266 VVC. The current Av1 isn't a documentation. Nor it is a Reference Implementation in the regards of all MEPG codec. The AV1 is built on a working, professionally made libvpx encoder built on VP9.
>There is absolutely not reason assume that av1 is fundamentaly more power consuming that HEVC.
It definitely will be more complex, both encoding and decoding. Its fundamental complexity is much higher then HEVC, how far could they optimise so they are close to 5 - 10x of HEVC is a different story.
Reference implementations are not about performance, they are documentation. They are not supposed to be used for anything else but documentation.
Your conclusion is ridiculous. There is absolutely not reason assume that av1 is fundamentaly more power consuming that HEVC.
A tank uses more gasoline that a VW Beetle. This statement is true, and as irrelevant as your statement.