Venturi is a speech codec (from an Indian startup, currently in stealth mode) specifically developed for VoIP applications and offers a compression ratio of 50 to 1 as against the industry standard of (max) 10 to 1.
Any voice data transmitted over the internet, which is where the future is headed, presently comprises of comparably huge file sizes. Globally, research in lossy compression has been stagnating and has not seen significant changes in spite of the volume of voice data transmission growing exponentially.
Venturi speech codec reduces the bandwidth needed by any voice transmission, specifically VoIP, by as much as a 6th (allowing one to pack +6 times more data than presently possible). This will mean lesser capital investment to cope with demand, reduced operational costs and better profits. 
Venturi X50: Features/Benefits
Because of its low processing delay (frame size of 10ms), VENTURI is well designed to offer telephone-quality voice over systems.
- The codec is easily adaptable for communications over packet communications systems, such as frame relay or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), that are designed to deliver the lowest practicable transport delay
- As networks are becoming more efficient and latency is diminishing, delay is an increasingly critical issue for competing with traditional service providers and for offering toll-quality speech over existing networks.
- Upgrading a network to add bandwidth is a costly investment.
- VENTURI offers a pleasant, near original (minimal loss) speech stream at the lowest possible constant bitrate of 0.036 kbps.
- VENTURI defines a voice quality equivalent to the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) while consuming only 0.036 kb/s, thus multiplying by 70+ the actual network capacity while maintaining / improving telephone service provider call quality
Bangalore based Chazz Studios, the company behind Venturi claims a powerful compression technology (5 minute MP3 of 5Mb size can be compressed to 75 Kb keeping the quality intact). The startup is also testing video compression technology and here is a quick QnA with founder, Chetan Prasad.
QN: In general, the market for this service is in US, esp media companies who create a lot of video/audio content. Do you agree? If yes, how do you plan to monetize this?
Sorry. But this perception is entirely wrong. Primarily we are a technology Product company and not a service oriented business.
As mentioned on the site we are into “Lossy compression technologies of media files” called “codecs”. This includes Audio, Image and Video.
Codecs control media. In general terms, what this means is, any audio/image/video which is digitized and compressed depends on codecs to define the file size wrt fidelity/clarity. But unfortunately the present codec technology is 50 years old and entirely incapable of catering to the boom in demand. Even though several global giants have spent millions chasing billions to develop better codecs, we are proud to be the first Indian pure tech company, a bootstrapped stealth startup at that, to have broken the ‘compression barrier’.
We already have 4 products (codecs) in the audio compression sector and these offer HD fidelity audio at the lowest bitrates in the world. MP3 is one such codec for music.
Our compression techniques are so powerful that if a 5 minute MP3 song is 5Mb, our “Venturi” codec can compress this to 75 Kb, thereby reducing file size by over 70 times. So you would need that much lesser space to store your songs and that much lesser bandwidth to transmit it.
Venturi codecs also find application in all and every area where audio is used. For example, in VoIP and Mobile telephony where Bandwidth / spectrum is an expensive & finite commodity globally. Venturi codecs will allow VoIP providers and Cellular operators to pack 70 – 130 times more speech in a given bandwidth – all at HD fidelity. This will literally end the demand for bandwidth and spectrum and make technologies like 3G, 4G redundant.
Our codecs will also be implemented into hardware like mobile phones, PC’s, laptops, audio recorders/players, TV’s etc.
We are currently in the process of testing codecs for Video files. These will be able to compress a full length HD movie into a few hundred kilobytes. What this means is that the lag (caused by huge files streaming over narrow bandwidths) you see when watching a Youtube video is a thing of the past. This will also alter the business of streaming video, IPTV, DTH etc and they will be incorporated into mobile phones, computers, Digital and video cameras and TV’s etc.
Reduced file sizes also mean lesser storage needs and this will help companies like Google (one of several) which maintain several acres of server farms for storing Youtube videos.
We also promote the fact that our technology is green since the internet is a carbon spewing monster. Any savings in bandwidth and the storage (server farms) of huge media files means a direct green credit.
Our revenue will be from licensing of our technology/products and also the services we will be offering for integration.
QN: Future plans
Our future plans are very ambitious, yet realistic. We are confident of growing to be the worlds biggest tech company. We feel we are positioned at the right time with the right technology, since today’s world is media driven and we are capable of offering a cost effective solution which is the need of the hour and also help our clients to monetize their businesses by slashing running expenses and expensive capacity addition.
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If you have any questions for Chetan, do ask them in the comment section.
