Encoding Engineer

[Jim_IT]

While reviewing the internal job listings, I came across this;


Essential Functions (Responsibilities):
The Encoding Engineer will be responsible for overseeing the daily operational
encoding of all digital media content for new digital video growth markets
including VOD, Internet, and Electronic Sell Thru. This engineer must have a
varied and thorough knowledge of video processes from capture to
compressions, a deep understanding of digital and television video formats,
equipment, technology and workflow. This position will be responsible for
documenting production processes, train additional engineers on production
processes, troubleshoot all production related problems and issues from
encoding to video and audio signal flow and purchasing equipment and
upkeep for the new encoding video production facility. The candidate must
have a discriminating eye for video quality.


Qualifications/Requirements:

Must have 5 to 7 years experience with video compression formats for
broadcast and digital media platforms such as: JPEG, MPEG, VC1, H.261, DV,
and other video compression and decompression techniques DVD-mastering
applications Digital video filtering and scaling; scan rate conversions, gen-
locking; De-interlacing and color space conversion; Encoding and decoding of
television standards such as NTSC, PAL, HDTV; FTP applications, database
applications, video compression quality test plans, scheduling, and color
parameter adjustment such as black levels, white levels, hue and saturation.
Must have experience with common NLEs such as Premiere, Final Cut Pro and
Avid, professional tape machines such as DigiBetas and D-5s, Digital Video
Routers, DVNRs and Professional Video monitors and audio mixing consoles.
Experience with networking concepts and standards, including Gigabit
Ethernet, bridged and IP-routed network topologies, IEEE802.3
Trunking/Cisco EtherChannel



I thought immediately of the folks at DOOM9 who do this every day, usually for their own entertainment, and they want to pay someone.

Jim

[Mug Funky]

hehe... sounds very familiar there. except there's no D-5 machine here (that'd be pretty cool).

maybe i should call myself "encoding engineer", because currently i don't have a real job description ("video monkey" is how i refer to myself).

[*.mp4 guy]

@Mug Funky

How do you go about getting a job as a "Encoding Engineer"? What kind of education to compainies look for?

[feedback]

If you have at least 10 years of practical experience I would guess that may be enough.
If you are younger I would guess at least a Bachelor of Science degree.

Hank315 (HC encoder author) has a MS degree and he has been around for awhile.

In the early 1990's just being good was all that was required. IMO these days in the USA a University BS degree would probably be required. That is unless you are a Jon Johansen. This is just my opinion.

Regards,:)

[DryFire]

It looks like they want some general networking knowbledge aswell. I suppose a net+ cert wouldn't hurt.

[Shinigami-Sama]

so I guess after I finish this year and have my CCNA and A+, combine with hanging around here would almost get me there, minus about 2 years experiance lol, I bet the job would be boring though, oh well

[Mug Funky]

@Mug Funky

How do you go about getting a job as a "Encoding Engineer"? What kind of education to compainies look for?

well, i don't have the title "encoding engineer", but i do most of what's on that list (save for the network stuff - there's IT guys here to do that).

as far as education, i have a bachelor of multimedia design, but that didn't teach the first thing about encoding (AV lecturer insisted that DV was "lossless"). everything i know about encoding i mostly learnt from here.

i guess the trick is to be in the right place at the right time and work your way up. if people notice you can do way more than what you are currently doing, or you have a way to speed things up significantly from how things were done before, then you'll end up doing those things pretty quickly.

it's probably different in australia because there's less DVD production going on (a big chunk of the market comes out from where i am).

basically i started as an AV tester - hardly difficult work, you just have to spot glitches and errors and stay awake. only did that for a day - the next day i was encoding, and gradually i got more into the software side of encoding (most of our masters are NTSC, we release in PAL, so IVTC is a godsend compared to a hardware converter), and now i'm half "mastering engineer" and half encoder.

in places like england where there's a huge number of post production places and DVD studios, it'd probably be a little harder to get into. but authoring would be a good place to start - i believe there's some short courses in programs like scenarist these days.

[feedback]

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