Video Compression Players Should “Compress” Hype
Posted by Sachin Garg on 20th January 2006 | Permanent Link
“The Diffusion Group” talks about all the hype recently generated by many companies offering Video compression solutions and all the claims made my them. The article also says why everything technically interesting might not become a market success.
The year 2006 has begun with plenty of excitement in all matters related to digital video: mobile video, IPTV, HDTV, DVR, video-on-demand, and on and on, ad nauseum.
On technological advancments, they say:
Today’s video compression landscape continues to be dominated by (pixel block) motion-based compressions such as MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV, and H.264. As more powerful processors become available, future advances in compression technology will likely include:
(1) Improvements based on existing principles (that is, MPEG-like in nature);
(2) Novel approaches (for example, wavelets, fractals, and autosophy);
(3) “Intelligent” object identification (for example, game-like picture synthesis); and
(4) Source-channel coding (such as video compression for specific mediums like DSL).Valiant marketing efforts aside, the hype surrounding new video compression solutions by Euclid, Blaze, On2, and Qbit has created a general mood of skepticism.
And about the hype generated and the claims made by these companies:
A quick guide to evaluating the hype could read as follows:
- The significance of improvement in compression ratios is inversely proportional to the credibility of such claims (in other words, the larger the improvement in compression claimed the more likely the claim is to be bogus);
- A press release about a controlled demo does not constitute proof of principle; and
- Protecting intellectual property is not a good excuse for avoiding independent testing.
Most impressive of innovations is not guaranteed market success:
Sadly, success is mostly determined by the product’s relation to relevant business environment and human condition. If there are too many entrenched competitors (even though they offer inferior technologies), or if consumers do not perceive a need for the solution (even if the engineering team believes otherwise), the chances of market success are minimal.
The Diffusion Group is a strategic research and consulting firm focused on the new media and digital home markets.