Innovate UK Awards 700k to SEQUOIA

Innovate UK awards £700k to SEQUOIA, a project dedicated to optimizing bandwidth for video streaming.

FREMONT, CA: Innovate UK awards £700k to SEQUOIA, an R&D project partnership between iSIZE, the BBC R&D, and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Innovate UK is part of UKRI, the national funding agency investing in science and industrial research in the UK.

The project looks at perceptual optimization of video streams to make significant reductions in bandwidth required for equal quality. It is at the heart of iSIZE’s work, and the company has built extensive IP and expertise in this domain. This will be combined with innovations in encoding technologies and optimization, pursued by BBC R&D and QMUL. 

“The problems facing video streaming are real and represent significant environmental issues,” said Sergio Grce, CEO of iSIZE. “The increase in video encoding complexity is outpacing Moores Law, and some respected researchers suggest that the internet's carbon footprint is greater than that of aviation. So, this is an issue that must be addressed.”

“We are very excited to be working with the BBC and QMUL on this project,” he added. “SEQUOIA brings us together with BBC and QMUL to advance the video streaming, incorporating our expertise in deep perceptual optimization and the latest cutting-edge AI innovation. This project will deliver significant financial and environmental improvements for video streaming.”

Disruptive innovation for video streaming is urgently needed: new pre and post-processing, encoding, and delivery tools that are device-aware and cross-codec compatible. This is vital to meet the increasing demand for online video, reducing processing, energy, and storage demands.

Sequoia will make an impact at every stage in the media distribution chain, demonstrating its results on functional and portable encoder designs, applicable both to video on demand and live streams. This will benefit the whole sector, demonstrating the technology to enable sustainable distribution of Ultra High-Definition content while limiting the impact of video on internet traffic and reducing distribution costs. Extending beyond the commercial benefits, project results will be devised to support environmentally conscious solutions by monitoring and proactively decreasing energy consumption at all stages within the media value chain.