Qbit, LLC, a start-up company based in Bethesda, Maryland, is coming out of “stealth” mode to introduce a radical new approach to lossless data reduction that provides extremely high image compression, but loses not even one bit of the original data. In fact, Z-Image is already achieving a 3 to 5x lossless encoding improvement using interframes, and 10x lossless using intraframes.
The market-place advantages of a lossless system with extremely high compression ratios are three fold. First, the final image quality is exactly as good as the original, uncompressed image, so it will look better than video that goes through a “lossy” system. Second, less storage is required, so many more minutes of video, or many more digital still images, can be held on a memory card or micro-disc. Third, more “payload” can be transmitted through any existing bandwidth, which means that many of today’s wired and wireless networks that provide marginal performance for video will be able to deliver high-quality video without the need for upgrading or adding additional bandwidth. It’s almost like magic!
The first solution being announced by Qbit is their new Z-Image, which losslessly encodes and decodes original, raw, raster data using a straightforward mathematical approach that can readily be operated on an Intel Pentium(tm) class personal computer. The Qbit Z-Image also lends itself to direct hardware implementation in embedded systems, and it will even work in low-cost, high volume applications such as digital cameras, digital video camcorders, video telephones and video-enabled cell phones. Z-Image is capable today of losslessly managing digital intermediate files for movie production, and compressing medical images where lossless compression is a requirement.
One of the founders of Qbit is Dennis Sullivan, formerly of Stellar One, where he helped develop one of the first-ever Internet Protocol set top boxes. I’ve been in touch with him since 1997, and, more recently, with Qbit’s founder and CEO, Dan Kilbank. I have been “in” on the developments of Qbit under non-disclosure since 2003. They have been providing me with regular updates on the progress of their encoding approach, and in late December of 2004, they have provided the “go ahead” to begin telling the world about what they have accomplished.
The lossless approach that Qbit uses invokes elements of Quantum Mechanics, and they have told me that they have a long-term roadmap that will provide several successive versions of their algorithm. The currently announced Z-Image will soon be available for licensing, along with a Software Developers Kit (SDK) and documentation to permit interested companies to begin preliminary design work.
Upcoming lossless technology from Qbit will be able to work on any analog or digital files. Possible uses for these later version Qbit algorithms may be the ability to send High Definition TV programming over standard ADSL telephone services, and any other network of choice.
