Hello, this week the CSC is hosting two events.

The first is a talk entitled 'A Brief Introduction to Video Encoding' on 2010-09-28 at 04:30 PM in MC4061. It will be presented by Peter Barfuss.

Talk Abstract: With the recent introduction of digital TV and the widespread success of video sharing websites such as youtube, it is clear that the task of lossily compressing video with good quality has become important. Similarly, the complex algorithms involved require high amounts of optimization in order to run fast, another important requirement for any video codec that aims to be widely used/adopted.

In this talk, I will go over the concepts used in video encoding (such as motion estimation/compensation, inter- and intra- frame prediction, quantization and entropy encoding), and then demonstrate these concepts and algorithms in use in the MPEG-2 and the H.264 video codecs. In addition, some clever optimization tricks using SIMD/vectorization will be covered, assuming sufficient time to cover these topics.

The second is our popular Unix 101 on 2010-09-29 at 04:30 PM in MC3003.

Need to use the Unix environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of the command line, or just curious? Attend the first installment in the CSC's popular series of Unix tutorails to learn the basics of the shell and how to navigate the unix environment. By the end of the hands on workshop you will be able to work efficiently from the command line and power-use circles around your friends.

Hope to see you there.

If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.