HEURIS was founded in late 1991 by Brian Quandt, Brian Roy,
and Jeanette DePatie. At the time, Brian Quandt was a software engineer contracting
with a telephony software startup located in St. Louis. One day, he came across an
issue of The Communications of the ACM. In it was an article describing
this wonderful new video format called MPEG. At that time, MPEG was working its way
through the international standards process. Brian saw in MPEG a technology that
could form the foundation of an entirely new industry. After discussing the
technology and its potential with Brian Roy and Jeanette DePatie, they decided to form
HEURIS Logic.
The first year of HEURIS was devoted to learning about the
technology, the post-production process, and the market. As part of this effort,
Brian Quandt joined the ISO team that was defining the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
specifications. During this time, Brian, Brian, and Jeanette also spent a great deal
of time working with potential customers to understand their needs. At the time,
this meant talking to and looking over the shoulders of Avid editors.
Out of these early research efforts, which took place in 1992
and 1993, came the idea for the company's first products - a complete MPEG-2 encoding and
editing system. The key component of this system was the software-based MPEG
encoder. As a result, in 1993 and 1994 HEURIS began focusing its efforts on
developing an MPEG encoder that offered a professional feature set and delivered
professional levels of image quality. However, as contemporary Macs and PCs
were too slow to run such a processor-intensive software package, HEURIS' first encoders
were designed to run on UNIX systems and HEURIS began operating as an MPEG encoding
service bureau. HEURIS operated as an MPEG encoding service bureau from late 1994
and through 1995. During this time it focused on refining its encoding technology
and learning about the precise needs of the MPEG encoding market..
As luck would have it, during early 1994 Pulitzer Publishing
established a new media division. This division was headed by Jeff Edwards and was
given the responsibility of identifying technologies of future interest to Pulitzer and
making investments in them. As Pulitzer was involved in broadcasting, HEURIS
was of significant interest. In August of 1994, HEURIS and Pulitzer formed a
joint venture partnership. The new company was called HEURIS/Pulitzer.
Several things became clear to HEURIS during the year, from
the middle of 1994 to the middle of 1995, that it operated as an MPEG encoding service
bureau. First, there was a large and growing market for MPEG encoding. Second,
processor speeds were increasingly rapidly and were making MPEG encoding on a standard Mac
or PC viable. Third, most users of MPEG encoding services cared primarily
about quality but were also price-sensitive. These factors made it clear that what
the market really needed was an MPEG encoder that offered three things:
- Professional features
- Professional quality
- A reasonable price
In early 1995 HEURIS began working to turn its proprietary
MPEG encoding technology into a commercially viable product. HEURIS introduced its
first commercial MPEG encoder - Real MPEG - at the COMDEX show in Las Vegas in late
1995. This product was designed to convert Avid OMF files into MPEG-1 streams and
met with a very strong reception from Avid users. The demand for MPEG by Avid users
was such that in the Spring of 1996 Avid bundled Real MPEG with its MC Express product.
During this time, it also became clear that there was a
market for MPEG encoding that extended beyond Avid users. As a result, HEURIS
improved the functionality of the Real MPEG encoder and added the ability to read a range
of other file formats, including QuickTime. In September of 1996 HEURIS launched
this new product under the MPEG Power Professional name. MPEG Power Professional,
which was a professional software-based MPEG-1 encoder, became HEURIS' flagship product.
Since launching MPEG Power Professional in late 1996, a
number of changes have taken place at HEURIS. First, HEURIS was spun out of Pulitzer
in early 1997 and is now operating on its own again. Second, HEURIS has continued to
extend the functionality of MPEG Power Professional. MPEG-2 encoding was added to
the product line in late 1997, DVD MPEG-2 encoding was added in the Spring of 1998,
expanded Transport Stream multiplexing was added in the Summer of 1998, and the HEURIS
MPEG Export Engine was added in August of 1998.
As HEURIS passed into the twenty-first century significant
additions were made to both the MPEG Power Professional line and the HEURIS MPEG Export
Engine line. Recent additions to the Power Professional Line include DTV Standard
Definition Encoding, High Definition Encoding for ATSC applications and High Definition
Encoding for Digital Cinema applications. Additions to the Export Engine line
include a Pro version which works with MPEG Power Professional as well as a Demultiplexer
called the HEURIS Xtractor.
In 2001 and 2002 HEURIS turned towards Hollywood and
developed key technology for the movie making industry. HEURIS penned a major OEM
agreement with EVS, bundling its Digital Cinema encoding technology with several EVS
systems. Also, in partnership with Panasonic and Cohen Communications, HEURIS developed a
turnkey system for Digital Dailies.
HEURIS continues to provide innovative video products of
superlative quality for customers over a wide spectrum of needs and applications.
From the home enthusiast to the Hottest in Hollywood, HEURIS provides award-winning,
ground-breaking technology, packaged in easy to use products that get the job done.
