Reply With QuoteAmazing. Who knew you could change bitrate while re-encoding files?
http://ihatelawyers3.github.com/
I thought this sort of thing died out ago at the last dotcom bust. Raystream hypes some billion-dollar Internet video problem when all they do is encoding with H264 defaults. Pretty interesting scam getting discovered on Hacker News: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3211630
Pump-and-dump.
Before Raystream, a one hour video converted to 720p using the best compression algorithms resulted in files in excess of 1 GB, far too large to be streamed over commercial Internet connections. Using Raystream, the same one hour 720p video can be compressed up to 90% of its original file size, which makes it easily streamable over connection speeds ranging from 0.4 to 1.0 Mbs per second." ... "Raystream compresses online videos, reducing their file size by up to 90%, with no loss in video quality or clarity."
Amazing. Who knew you could change bitrate while re-encoding files?
I have a related story.
A long, long time ago I developed and sold a shareware data compression program, a competitor for ARC (does anyone remember ARC?) and PkZip.
At one E3, I got invited to see a "revolutionary" new data compression program. I think the company was called Web or something like that, I've forgotten. They were claiming, I shit you not, that you could re-compress their archives and get 50%-75% benefit each time, so that a 10 MB file took up 10 KB or so by the time you were done with their demonstration. I guess they figured most people had no idea how data compression actually works, so they'd believe it.
It was an out-and-out investment scam. This was the days of DOS, so in their demonstration they'd do a DIR to show the new files, and at the bottom of the directory listing was the remaining disk space. The total disc space would go down by the size of the new file plus the size of the old file. They were clearly just copying the old file somewhere and hiding it.
Which one?Originally Posted by Gus_Smedstad
Sounds a lot like lzip.They were claiming, I shit you not, that you could re-compress their archives and get 50%-75% benefit each time, so that a 10 MB file took up 10 KB or so by the time you were done with their demonstration.
I called it GSARC originally - childish hubris, I know, but remember that Philip Katz called his program PKARC at the time. Then ARC sued him, I figured a name change was in order, and changed it to PAK. Phil changed his to PKPAK at about the same time, which made me feel pretty stupid, but in a quick exchange of email he said he wasn't fond of the name anyway, and shortly afterward his became PKZIP.
PAK was never really a major competitor, but it paid my rent for a few years.
Ha, I remember that being an ongoing source of amusement on Usenet for a while. Anyone with half a brain saw through it, but you'd occasionally get people wandering in with "Wait, could you explain this to me again?" or "But what if you did ____?". More details are available in section [9] of the comp.compression FAQ.
And I remember .ARC; it was probably the most popular archive format for Atari files on BBSes back in those days. (I had to do a quick search to double-check that it was actually the same format.) Edit: I vaguely remember .PAK too, though I might have only seen it listed for download on BBSes and not actually used it myself.
I remember the Japanese coming up with and using LHA/LZH. I used mostly ARJ for that extra tiny bit of extra compression it eked out.
I remember PAK--wow, small world.
You're the PAK guy?! Almost as cool as your HoMM 3 credit :-)
On infinite compression, this is a good thread. Never found out if the guy was a troll or not: http://groups.google.com/group/comp....f09c085ce4aa7f
That's understandable.
At the time, my main claim to fame was that PAK got better compression than the other programs because I understood data compression better, which wasn't saying much. My main insight at the time was that instead of letting the code table freeze when it was full or throw everything away, you should use cache techniques to throw away the least recently used code. My previous project was a memory cache for one of the early Apple II hard disks, so that was prominent in my mind at the time.
However, the extra bit of compression wasn't enough to compensate for not being as fast as PKArc / Zip, which was why Zip was much more popular. Processors were a lot slower in those days, and compression / decompression times were significant.
LHA of course totally outclassed my minor improvement to LZW by going with Huffman-Sliding Window. I had no trouble duplicating that, but I couldn't better it.
I just beat the Million Random Digit Challenge (my comment is at the very bottom, dated November 9th, 2011 at 9:45 pm). This compression shit is easy!
I liked ARJ because the command line syntax was better than PKZIP 2.04g.
Because people are bringing up old compression: Anyone remember .WRP (Warp) files on the Amiga? It was a staple of pirated games distribution as it compressed an entire 3.5" disk image fairly well.
No, but I remember an executable compression program called Imploder which had pretty good music built in.
So back to the scammers...how are they still able to do this? Facebook page etc are still up.
Nobody who recognises the scam wants to waste time getting them caught, because they can avoid the trap for much less personal cost to themselves. And police have more important frauds to catch.
That is fucking hilarious.
I actually think this guy is probably sincere because I have a hard time imagining a troll with this much commitment to seeming like an absurdly smart idiot. Contributing to the "troll" theory, though, is the fact that that poster only ever posted in that one comp.compression thread.....
Hi, ive created an account here specifically to ask what else you know about raystream. Are all of you 100% certain that this is BS? A friend told me about this and my initial thought was that this is already happening. Do you guys really know or are you just responding from looking at the surface? I'm not testing everyone as i am here for your knowledge on this subject. Thanks.
Hi Bret. I actually got in touch with the guys behind Raystream's tech and ended up having lunch with their CTO. He's a smart guy and their claims are totally backed up with the evidence. The compression they offer is truly "next-gen", I'm not even sure how they managed to get current hardware to decode it in realtime so efficiently!
Anyway, I think this whole market is an unnoticed sector of the internet boom that's just about to explode with profits. If you can invest in this or a similar company I'd highly recommend it.
Cheers.
Reported!
Are you being sarcastic?
Of course it's a scam. Incidentally, this thread is the number hit for raystream+scam now on Google.
Encode a video at needlessly high bitrate. Transcode it using presets. Voila, 90% compression.
It seems like a scam. How do you know?
http://thestreetsweeper.org/undersur...louds_of_Doom_
Fuck you, astroturfer. If stupid greedy people want to buy in on this scam, feel free to.
No mate, it's the truth!
I believe the formula goes: Make vague sweeping announcements filled with large numbers, hyping grandiose [general internet problem here] that is already solved, throwing in large well-known companies that you aren't affiliated with in any way (Youtube, Akamai, NetFlix etc.) and have the same people that promoted a well-known pump and dump last year run this year's campaign.
They even reused the same webcode as the previous pump-and-dump campaign: http://youtu.be/1x3zajM1EHs
The office/company has no presence, staff, patents or any technology but instead repackage some off-the-shelf existing video compression technology this already is present everywhere. Also, no licenses for the AAC and MPEG-LA used:
http://www.vialicensing.com/licensin...licensees.aspx
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/...Licensees.aspx
..then try to make off with as much money before everything collapses. Why the fuck do I need to prove it to some astroturfer? It's your money. Best of luck to you.
They don't exist as a video compression company. More power to anyone who wants to ride the empty money-making pump-and-dump vehicle that it "seems" to be. I'd rather not rile any Russian Mafia members behind this.
Last edited by rei; 12-03-2011 at 12:09 PM.
I don't want to. I just want to understand. I'm here to learn.
Odd... I remember it being DiskMasher(?) (.dms) being the dominant Amiga format, at least when things weren't using .arj or .lzh.
Watching one of the penny stock forums filled with paid shills or clueless people breathlessly defensive towards Raystream is like insight into how greedy people who fall for the Nigerian schemes can still side with the perpetrators until the bitter end. Post-after-post of nonsensical "well, they wouldn't be scammers since..." or "it's just jealousy from the tech giants!" It's pretty interesting.
More evidence it's a scam:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3128...clouds-of-doom
Detailed review: http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/10...ree-technology
compared to a shilling non-expert review done with Microsoft Paint (yes, really):
www.reelseo.com/putting-raystream-to-the-test
Looks like it's in its dying days now with gullible people still thinking that it's for real on the spam-filled investing forums.
Clients? What clients? For a non-existent product and company?
A ...fly-fishing internet video company? Ahahaha, you can't make this shit up.
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