Audio and video content will soon be delivered almost exclusively over the Internet. Of critical importance is the protection of copyrighted content. In the case of video, the increasing fidelity of content is demanding ultra-efficient multimedia processing and storage pipelines. Also, many of today’s multimedia delivery services enhance content with interactive features. These trends are driving both the complexity and value of digital multimedia software.

What We Do

Quandary Peak experts have a deep understanding of and experience analyzing:

  • Software that implements audio and video encoding standards, vector-based formats, and DRM protection schemes.
  • Software that controls cameras, audio recorders, and displays.
  • Digital video recorders (DVRs) and commercial video streaming technology.
  • Voice-over-IP (VOIP) and cable television networks.
  • Multimedia metadata to determine the origin and nature of content.
  • The quality of digitally encoded audio and video.
  • Live streaming technologies.
  • High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Picture Quality technologies.

What We Know
  • JPEG, SVG, PNG, GIF
  • MP3, WMA, 3GP, M4A
  • MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4, H.263, H.264
  • Divx 3.11/4.0/5.0/6.0
  • VPX, VP8, AVI, WMV
  • HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), MPEG DASH
  • Silverlight, Flash
  • Alpha compositing, transparency, and translucence
  • Luminance and chrominance
  • Peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming technologies
  • Video compression, motion vector prediction, discrete cosine transform (DCT), residual signals
  • Encryption and DRM schemes
  • High Dynamic Range (HDR), Wide Color Gamut (WCG), Perceptual Quantization (PQ) and Hybrid Log–Gamma (HLG)
  • HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision
  • HDR Metadata (ST 2086), Dynamic Metadata (ST 2094)
  • Color Grading, Picture Quality, Display Technologies, Display Calibration
  • Video transcoding, FFMPEG


We know digital video, audio, and multimedia.

Our digital video and multimedia gurus provide expert testimony and technical analysis of compression and encoding algorithms, streaming media, consumer electronics, and mobile phone cameras. We have analyzed devices from TiVo, EchoStar, and Samsung, hardware from Intel, Qualcomm and Huawei, and software from Microsoft, Apple, Google, just to name a few.

  • Video compression standards: Patents for video compression technology are among the most fiercely contested because of the growing importance and value of digital content delivery services. Understanding these patents — which cover arcane topics like motion vector prediction, macroblock segmentation, and residual signal encoding — is one of our specialties, and we consider ourselves among the best in analyzing prior art, evaluating the relative strength of patent claims, and determining infringement in this complex and difficult to understand field.
  • Digital video recorders (DVRs): One of Quandary Peak’s first big cases was EchoStar v. TiVo, a widely publicized patent infringement lawsuit over foundational DVR technology that was eventually settled for $500 million. Since then, our expertise in the area of video recording, storage, and playback has become even more comprehensive. We have the ability to rapidly and efficiently document the design and function of the software that powers DVRs and similar consumer TV devices because we’ve done it before and already know how it works.
  • Smartphone cameras: The inclusion of one (and sometimes two) digital cameras on virtually every mobile phone sold today has resulted in a large number of patents for digital imaging devices being asserted against smartphone manufacturers. The ubiquity and familiarity of digital cameras today leads many people to mistakenly assume that the software that controls these devices is simple and straightforward. In fact, software for image and video capture and playback (on an Android or iOS device, for example) is incredibly complex. Quandary Peak’s digital camera experts have analyzed the entire camera software stack on just about every mobile device you can think of, and no one understands how this software works better than we do.

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