Facebook Acquires QuickFire Networks, A ‘Pied Piper’ For Video

Facebook has a acquired QuickFire Networks, a TC Disrupt 2014 Battlefield contestant that built a custom hardware and software platform for reducing video file sizes and upload times. The Wall Street Journal got the news earlier today, with confirmation later arriving on QuickFire’s site.

QuickFire’s tech speeds up encoding videos with different profiles for frame rate, resolution, color and audio settings for different platforms. QuickFire’s solution relied on custom motherboards built to accommodate 11 high-end Intel Core i7 processors. Custom software let these processors work in unison, and a layer on top of that let the startup massively scale up by distributing work among multiple motherboards.

For users, the end result of Facebook integrating QuickFire’s tech would be reduced buffering of videos without degradation in quality.

According to a letter announcing the acquisition on QuickFire’s site from CEO Craig Lee, the company will wind down its prior business operations as the team transitions over to Facebook.

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