Google acquires Irish digital video technology company Green Parrot Pictures

Google has acquired Irish digital video technology company Green Parrot Pictures with the intention of using their innovations to improve the quality of videos uploaded to YouTube. Green Parrot’s technology has been employed post-production on several blockbuster movies including The Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man.

The company was founded in 2004 by Associate Professor Anil Kokaram at the Engineering School in Trinity College Dublin. Since then, Kokaram and a small team of engineers have pioneered cutting-edge video quality improvement technology that sharpens images, reduces noise and improves the overall quality of the video file.

In a blog post Jeremy Digg, director of video technology at Google, uses the recent Libyan uprising as an example, stating that the newly acquired technology would help improve video content taken on low-quality devices like mobile phones, and subsequently uploaded to YouTube,

“Although emotionally captivating, they can be jerky, blurry or unsteady. What if there was a technology that could improve the quality of such videos — sharpening the image, reducing visual noise and rendering a higher-quality, steadier video — all while your video is simply being uploaded to the site? You can imagine how excited we were when we discovered a small, ambitious company based in Ireland that can do exactly this.”

Although services have now been withdrawn from Green Parrot Pictures website, a partial statement reads,

“We’re excited to join Google, where we will apply our expertise to improve the online video experience for hundreds of millions of users worldwide on many different products, platforms and services.”

Image courtesy of hyku on Flickr.