Episode 6: Rethinking Video with Scott Hastings
Scott Hastings, CEO of ZPEG, shares with us how they are rethinking video compression. In our video heavy world, from Netflix to Youtube, it’s critical to be able to send files without compromising quality. Scott also gives us insight into the Austin defense ecosystem and how ZPEG began working with CACI, a big name in the defense industry.
SHOWNOTES
WHAT DOES ZPEG DO?
- ZPEG is an early stage startup focused on increasing the compressibility of video. They have two different primary products. The first one is a pre-processor. It is designed to reduce video delivery costs without sacrificing quality. To put it in perspective, without video compression, you really couldn’t send videos through the internet because they are too large in size. With video compression, you can send 4k video much faster through the internet. ZPEG removes temporal redundancies, uses a human visual model that optimizes videos using lower bandwidths, and does not require any changes to the decoder.
- The second product ZPEG holds as a core technology is a video codec. With the visual processor, it works with existing information on existing codecs. But with this second product, they are building a whole new way of looking at video using a new video codec. This core technology works using an advanced 3D Human Vision Model, which removes the elements in a video that our visual system cannot perceive to make videos more compressible.
ZPEG’S ROOTS IN INNOVATION
- ZPEG was founded by Scott Hastings with his co-founder/Chief Technology Officer Raymond Westwater. Scott Hasting is from Texas and he went to University of Texas in Austin. He always had a penchant for science but he never really wanted to graduate. He studied everything he could, taking different courses in Biology, Psychology, and Computer Science. When he started working at research labs at Indiana University, he was introduced to the human visual system through Dr. Ken Mackey.
- Dr. Raymond Westwater previously worked with Microsoft, Intel and IBM before he became the genius behind the technology of ZPEG. Raymond had done military work in the past, giving him a decent understanding of working with the defense market.
ZPEG AND THE AUSTIN DEFENSE ECOSYSTEM
- ZPEG is currently working with CACI to build a new codec for government use. Additionally, ZPEG is working on demos and test projects of this new technology with different social networks. Before CACI, they worked with accelerators such as MassChallenge, Texas Venture Labs, and Austin Technology Incubator.
- The partnership with CACI started when ZPEG joined a large contest in Austin that focused on four different problems within the military and government space. ZPEG was able to secure first place, receiving a $100,000 investment from CACI and the attention that the contest brought with it. They used the buzz from the competition to meet with many different big prime military contractors as well.
ADVICE FOR OTHER STARTUPS
- Scott believes ZPEG is created from the formula: Opportunity + Curiosity + Stubbornness, and has used this to get his tech into the video field. The advice Scott would give small businesses working in the government landscape, R&D and/or labs is to be persistent. If you believe that your tech has value, just go for it. But try to look for evangelists and internal advocates as well. People will believe in what you do, you just have to prove to them your technology has value.
If you want to learn more about Scott Hastings, his team, and his products, head over to their website at https://zpeg.com/.
