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Daiz hello, this is Dror from Beamr. The technologies we have developed, JPEGmini and Beamr Video, are definitely not "Snake Oil", and I don't think it would b

Daiz hello, this is Dror from Beamr. The technologies we have developed, JPEGmini and Beamr Video, are definitely not "Snake Oil", and I don't think it would be good practice to make such claims regarding any company's technology without checking the facts first and asking for the company's response before posting. Our technologies for image and video compression have received excellent reviews in the media, and have been tested and proven by industry experts. You can find the reviews online, and I would be happy to send you the quotes we got from the industry experts as well. Thousands of users are using our free online photo optimization service at JPEGmini.com daily, and thousands more have purchased JPEGmini for Mac to optimize images locally, and they are all very happy with these tools. The important thing regarding our technologies, and the main point you have missed in your analysis, is that they are used for automatic image optimization to the lowest bitrate or file size possible, and not for encoding an image or video to a specific bitrate or file size. Based on analysis of the image or video using a perceptual quality measure we have developed, we adaptively set the encoding parameters for each image or video. So the amount of compression for each image or video clip is different, and depends on the content and original quality of that image. Comparing the quality of a clip encoded in Beamr Video with the quality of the same clip encoded at the same bitrate using another encoder is meaningless, since part of the uniqueness of Beamr Video is "knowing" what is the right bitrate (actually the lowest bitrate possible) for encoding each video such that it stays perceptually identical to the original clip. Beamr Video is the only technology that can adaptively reduce the bitrate of any clip to the minimum amount possible, while ensuring that quality of the output clip is perceptually identical to the quality of the input clip. The same is true for our image technology: We reduce each JPEG file to the minimum file size possible without affecting its original quality. Of course, you can take a specific file and tune a regular JPEG encoder to reach the same size on that specific file. And you can also manually tune the quality for each image using a regular JPEG encoder by viewing the photo before and after compression. But there is no other technology that can take millions of photos and automatically adapt the size of each one to the minimum possible size while preserving quality. The clips on our website are an initial demo of Beamr Video we are offering today, based on Blu-Ray sources. In a few weeks we will launch a cloud-based Beamr Video encoding service, where everyone will be able to process their own clips and reach their own conclusions. There are free trial versions of JPEGmini available for anyone to download and try. So again, I don't understand the basis of your "Snake Oil" claim. I would be happy to continue this discussion with you privately if you like, you can email me at dror@beamr.com.

rorrr 14y ago
So post 1) a high quality original video (30-40 Mbit). 2) a 2-Mbit video compressed with your algorithm. 3) a 2-Mbit video compressed with x264 with reasonable settings. Until you present evidence, that article has very valid criticisms, which you have not addressed. Instead you went full PR astroturfing telling how great your tech is. PROVE YOUR CLAIMS.
- drorgill 14y ago
  Beamr Video is not a bitrate-driven encoder - you cannot specify the bitrate of the output clip, so we cannot provide 2). We can only provide an output clip with the same quality as the input and lower bitrate, but we can't guarantee in advance what that bitrate would be. That is the basic difference between Beamr Video which is a quality-driven video optimization technology, and a regular video encoder that is typically bitrate-driven.
  - kevinpet 14y ago
    You could compress something with Beamr first, see what bitrate it spit out, then compress with standard encoder at the same bitrate. This isn't perfect since it's clearly favoring Beamr, but it would be somewhat useful.
    - bjornsing 14y ago
      How would this be "favoring Beamr"? I'd see it as piggybacking on a potentially useful Beamr innovation. Someone slightly more fanatic about IPR might even call it "theft". As I understand it, the whole point of Beamr is that you don't have to manually tune the parameters for each video file.
      - kevinpet 14y ago
        It took me a few reads to see what you meant. I had taken Beamr to be about optimizing things like which what size blocks to use, how often to put i frames, and so on, which means better perceived quality at some bitrate. If it's always using the same settings and the only smartness is about what framerate to pick, then you would be correct.

rorrr 14y ago

So post 1) a high quality original video (30-40 Mbit). 2) a 2-Mbit video compressed with your algorithm. 3) a 2-Mbit video compressed with x264 with reasonable settings. Until you present evidence, that article has very valid criticisms, which you have not addressed. Instead you went full PR astroturfing telling how great your tech is. PROVE YOUR CLAIMS.

drorgill 14y ago
Beamr Video is not a bitrate-driven encoder - you cannot specify the bitrate of the output clip, so we cannot provide 2). We can only provide an output clip with the same quality as the input and lower bitrate, but we can't guarantee in advance what that bitrate would be. That is the basic difference between Beamr Video which is a quality-driven video optimization technology, and a regular video encoder that is typically bitrate-driven.
- kevinpet 14y ago
  You could compress something with Beamr first, see what bitrate it spit out, then compress with standard encoder at the same bitrate. This isn't perfect since it's clearly favoring Beamr, but it would be somewhat useful.
  - bjornsing 14y ago
    How would this be "favoring Beamr"? I'd see it as piggybacking on a potentially useful Beamr innovation. Someone slightly more fanatic about IPR might even call it "theft". As I understand it, the whole point of Beamr is that you don't have to manually tune the parameters for each video file.
    - kevinpet 14y ago
      It took me a few reads to see what you meant. I had taken Beamr to be about optimizing things like which what size blocks to use, how often to put i frames, and so on, which means better perceived quality at some bitrate. If it's always using the same settings and the only smartness is about what framerate to pick, then you would be correct.