Cardinal Peak

The Future of Clutter

If you’re looking to predict what technologies will be obsolete soon, visiting the Kodak booth at CES is not a bad place to start. I came to this realization as I was watching a demo from one of Kodak’s partners, [...]

We’ve Moved

I’m a little late in posting this here, but it’s been a busy couple of months. As has already been reported in the local press, Cardinal Peak moved in late September. We’ve been adding some folks in the past year, [...]

Using Lossy Video Compression in the Courtroom

I’m at the DSI conference in Las Vegas today, presenting a primer for law enforcement investigators on how video compression works and trying to answer the question of why “lossy” compression should be considered reliable for use in courtrooms.

The lack of trust in digital media compression in a forensic setting is primarily a PR issue for the media compression industry, if such an industry can be said to exist. We use terms like “lossy compression” and “predicted blocks”—terms that have relatively precise technical meaning. But these terms also have a slightly different meaning to laymen, and that everyday meaning isn’t exactly reassuring if you’re a judge relying on testimony compressed using a lossy compression algorithm.

Using Royalties to Pay for Engineering Services

At Cardinal Peak, we are willing to include royalties as part of our compensation under certain circumstances, but there are powerful constraints limiting our appetite for such deals. So in this post I’ll explain a few of our reservations about royalties.

Using Windows Movie Maker with the Kodak Zi8

In a previous blog post, I mentioned I had a Kodak Zi8 video camera. This past weekend, I decided I wanted to try Windows Movie Maker (WMM) to edit videos produced with it, instead of the built-in Arcsoft MediaImpression software [...]

Why We Engage on a Time and Materials Basis

When a prospective customer calls us, they generally have one of two engagement models in mind: time and materials (T&M), or fixed price. This post explains why Cardinal Peak strongly prefers T&M engagements to FP ones—and why savvy customers should, too.

ElcomSoft’s Hack of Image Authentication

There was some interesting news yesterday about the cracking of an image authentication mechanism built into Nikon cameras. The hack was announced in what seemed to me like a rather adolescent post on the ElcomSoft company blog: ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. [...]

The h.264 Sequence Parameter Set

This is a follow-up to my World’s Smallest h.264 Encoder post. I’ve received several emails asking about precise details of things in two entities in the h.264 bitstream: the Sequence Parameter Set (SPS) and the Picture Parameter Set (PPS). Both [...]

A Propeller-Head Visits Vegas, part 2

My partner Mike Perkins and I traveled this week to Las Vegas to take in NAB, one of the big trade shows for the broadcast video market. We try to travel together once or twice a year, because in addition [...]

A Propeller-Head Visits Vegas, part 1

I spent the day yesterday in Las Vegas for ISC West, one of the largest shows for the CCTV and security industry. We have a couple of customers exhibiting at this show, and I haven’t attended for the last couple [...]