News: Google buys Green Parrot Pictures

Google has announced its latest acquisition, Green Parrot Pictures, a digital video technology company that was established by Associate Professor Anil Kokaram at the Engineering School of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

The reason behind the purchase is that Google wants to improve and enhance YouTube videos with an inferior quality. Around 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute by users from around the globe.

The majority of YouTube video, such as the current Japanese tsunami videos or that of protest actions in Libya, have been recorded using low-quality mobile phones or video cameras. As a result these can be badly lit, jerky, blurry or even unsteady.

Irish company Green Parrot Pictures have created video quality improvement technology that has been employed within major studio productions such as Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man.

The company’s technology not only enhances the quality of videos, but also enables these improved videos to utilise less bandwidth and helps to speed up playback.

“With the equivalent of over 170 000 full-length movies uploaded to YouTube every week, the team’s experience in this area -- working on solutions for both video consumers and experts alike -- will be a source of new ideas and further innovation at YouTube and across Google,” stated Jeremy Doig, director, Google Video Technology in a blogpost.

“We look forward to working with them to make the videos you upload every minute of every day to our site look even better.”

Google also recently annound the acquisition of Next New Networks, a web video production company. An example of a video restored using Green Parrot Pictures' technology follows after the break.

Google buys Green Parrot Pictures

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