If you're referring to Program Management and not Project Management...
Microsoft actually created the "PM" role and popularized it.
"The PM role is unique to Microsoft and was actually created in response to developing software that is more usable and at the same time pushes the state of the art of technology. So when we talk about PM at Microsoft, we're talking from a perspective of creating and evolving the role over the lifetime of the PC industry."
"Program managers got started at Microsoft while developing Excel for the Macintosh. [...] a new role was created in Program Management with the explicit goal of partnering with development and working through the entire product cycle as the advocate for end-users and customers."
The twitter user just so happens to works for a company that uses the technology the "good Samaritan" used. I just glanced at who the guy was, and found it funny that he works in the industry. Who knows, maybe that's why he found it so awesome.
"In April 2018, TransferWise joined Faster Payments as the first non-bank payment service provider to be a directly connected settling participant,[23] after being the first of its kind to gain access to Bank of England's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.[24]"
"Money transfer firm TransferWise has become the first non-bank company with direct access to Britain’s Faster Payments Scheme, which the start-up said on Wednesday would help it compete with banks on sending money overseas."
On Windows hold shift then press the media keys to control a second (background) program. Found this out purely by accident in this exact scenario, VLC in foreground and Spotify in background!!!
It's good to see a response from Beamr staff.
Perhaps rhetorical but....
How do you feel licensing an amazing open source tool, adding a few patches you feel needed for perceptual quality in crf encodes, and then calling it your own product? Even a "patent pending" product?
You've done one small bit of coding, building upon the _years_ of work that open source devs have done.
You present this minorly tweaked x264 as a revolution in online video and allude that it's all your work. No reference to x264 at all on your site, which I guess is your right having paid the license fee. Still not impressive for anyone looking at your product, how it works, or wondering about the toolchain involved.
How about submitting some patches and pull requests to the tool that makes your product possible? Oh wait, that's right, you'll take that product that's 99% not your work and make as much money as you can.
Are you gonna approach all the big sites using x264 and try to convince them to change to beamr? No, I didn't think so. Snake Oil semantics for the uninformed.
As a wonderful T-Shirt I saw once states " My free software runs your company ".
UPDATE
Actually I've thought long and hard about this. They might not be so blameworthy or snake oily, they might just be using FAR too broad of explanations for what they've done. We've all jumped on them because it was almost like they've said they created a new encoder.
The possibility I didn't really think of is that they have coded their own proprietary solution that, as the media put it loosely in the original piece posted here :
"According to the company, the compression method mimics the human eye and removes elements that would not have been processed by the human eye in the first place." [1]
Now I don't know if their solution; #1 Directly changes/effects the x264 source code, or #2 is something that runs before encoding and simply determines x264 settings to be used. Or even a mixture of both.
#1 If the changes are to x264 itself, I shake my head and my fist at them and again point to the years of open free development done in x264. (Most notable in this case it's amazing psy optimizations which do exactly what this company is claiming to have advanced ... it adjusts quality internally for the human eyes perception instead of metrics like PSNR and SSIM.) Submit a patch!
#2 If their software is completely separate and determines x264 settings via their proprietary methods, then what they've done is not so ridiculous.
They've done a confusing job explaining things, but I can imagine at least one scenario:
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A user uploads a home video to their servers.
Their software scans it and takes careful note of scenes with high levels of movement, scenes with human shapes moving, scenes with human faces, scene's that match algorithms for water, grass, natural environs etc etc
They then parse those notes and either set x264's many advanced settings globally, or perhaps even change each scene's x264 settings accordingly.
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Who knows.... It's been interesting following this nonetheless,
Especially since this states H.264 compliance, I'd be willing to say this can't possibly live up to it's claims.
Video encoders are notorious for their bloated claims and faulty comparisons. After a quick perusal of their site I see they compare themselves only to web-m, and use generalized %'s to claim differences between products and processes.
They say they've optimized for human perceptual quality. Perhaps they have. But did they really do a better job than the open source H.264 alternative (x264) used by everyone from YouTube and Hulu, to Facebook? One thats been in development for _years_ now and beats just about everything thrown at it in a fair comparison?
I think not. I'd love to be wrong though.
I wish h264 and the upcoming hevc encoded images would become a real alternative. far better quality (for pictures especially), at a lower bitrate from what ive read.
"The PM role is unique to Microsoft and was actually created in response to developing software that is more usable and at the same time pushes the state of the art of technology. So when we talk about PM at Microsoft, we're talking from a perspective of creating and evolving the role over the lifetime of the PC industry."
"Program managers got started at Microsoft while developing Excel for the Macintosh. [...] a new role was created in Program Management with the explicit goal of partnering with development and working through the entire product cycle as the advocate for end-users and customers."
https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~xwangsd/courses/w23/readings/PM%...