DERI Seminar with Christian Etmann from Deep Render

When: Thursday, June 15, 2023, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Where: Zoom

Speaker: Christian Etmann, Senior Research Scientist & co-lead of the ML Research Dept

Zoom link: https://qmul-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81148100921

Title: Neural compression - developing AI-based video codecs at Deep Render

Abstract: Over the last few years, the amount of data that is transmitted over the internet has grown exponentially, at a doubling rate of 2-3 years. Media (and in particular video) make up 85% of this. Neither the growth of the global bandwidth, not the development of classical codecs can keep up with this increase. On the other hand, AI-based compression has the potential to completely revolutionise how codecs are built -- based on the properties of the compressed data, and not based on hand-engineered transforms. In this talk, we will look at how AI-based compression works, and what the challenges are in rolling out an AI-based video codec.

Short biography: Christian Etmann is a Senior Research Scientist and co-lead of the ML Research department at Deep Render, a London-based start-up developing novel AI-based video codecs. Previously, after obtaining his PhD in applied mathematics at the University of Bremen, he worked as a Postdoc at the University of Cambridge. His main research focus lies in neural compression, as well as generative modelling in general (with prior work in GANs, VAEs, normalising flows and diffusion models).