The Company

Euclid Discoveries (“the company”) is a privately held video processing software development firm based in Concord , MA . The company was founded in 1999, and since that time has focused on developing a new way to process and compress video images. Euclid brought together mathematical approaches from several fields to create a technology that analyzes patterns and objects within video. This technology, called EuclidVision™, has achieved compression ratios of 15,168 to 1 in the research lab. EuclidVision greatly exceeds the state of the art, with a 460% improvement over MPEG-4 across a range of video types, with no drop off in quality. This technology will ultimately let users watch high-definition, full-length movies on the same cell phones and PDAs they use right now.

Euclid Discoveries has also developed a rigorous testing environment, EuclidStudio™, to evaluate video compression and quality for MPEG-4 and other compression technologies. EuclidStudio allows the company to demonstrate the compression capabilities of the software – showing a “before and after” in terms of size – while simultaneously letting users go frame-by-frame to see that picture quality remains excellent.

EuclidStudio has been made available to video experts all over the world through the company’s website, and there have been thousands of downloads so far.

The Technology

EuclidVision is object-based - that is, it segments objects in the video, focuses compression to the most critical and active objects and sub objects, and then enhances the images, resulting in superior video quality. Instead of trying to compress the whole image, EuclidVision identifies objects and sub objects of interest (for example, a person's head, or an eye or ear) in the video while maintaining or enhancing the quality of the background. This approach makes it possible to reduce the size of the file without compromising the video quality.

EuclidVision is a proprietary technology that is also MPEG-4 compliant, and can be integrated into existing compatible media players like Microsoft© Windows Media© Player and RealNetworks© RealPlayer, among others.

This technology currently provides a 460% or greater compression improvement over MPEG-4, the standard for digital video, or a 600% improvement over MPEG-2, which is the DVD standard. Euclid engineers are continuing to refine the technology, and EuclidVision has the potential to increase its video compression ratios even more.

Euclid Discoveries' immediate focus is on the creation of a video codec based on the EuclidVision technology. This proprietary codec will revolutionize digital video delivery, enabling users to experience significant improvements in video uploading and downloading speed, and will also provide a number of other significant video processing capabilities. 

Applications

EuclidVision’s current applications are centered around video compression and processing.  These applications include the ability to compress and store 100 GB of video in a 10 GB device, HD video streamed to a mobile device in real time, image-based search capability, video enhancement to improve image quality from lower quality video devices, i.e. mobile phones, and the creation of personal avatars from digital images.

Key Personnel and Contributors

Service Partners & Association Memberships

Buetow, LeMastus & Dick PLLC
CRA International, Inc.
G.S. Schwartz & Co. Inc.
Hamilton, Brook, Smith, and Reynolds, P.C.
Hutchinson & Co.
INCITS - International Committee for IT Standards (voting member)
Kenyon & Kenyon
MPEG Industry Forum
Silicon Valley Law Group
Silicon Valley Patent Group