Compression for Great Video and Audio, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 5 Production, Acquisition, and Post Production

Introduction

From 1995–1999 I was the Chief Technologist and partner in a small (maxed out at eight full-timers) company that offered what we called “digital media production, post and compression services.” This was a good time, and Portland, Oregon was a good market for that stuff. We had a lot of technology companies using digital media really early, like Intel, Tektronix, and Mentor Graphics, plus the double-footed shoe titan of Nike and Adidas Americas. During that period, most of our content was delivered via kiosks or CD-ROM, with the web getting big near the end.

And compression was hard back then, and very content-specific. There was simply no way to encode a frenetic music video ...