Galan R. Bridgman Software Developer / CTO / Consultant Location: Santa Clara, CA Phone: (408) 230-4609 Email: (galan) @ (bridgman) . (com)

Professional Biography

Work History:

March 2007 - Present   CTO, iSCORR Media, Inc.

Architect, manager and lead developer for several projects utilizing ASP.NET, C#, Silverlight, XAML, HTML+CSS, AJAX, PHP, and SQL.  Procured managed hosting and streaming video CDN services and architected solution for commercial launch of site supporting 5 million simultaneous users.

July 2006 - March 2007   President/CEO, DextriMedia, Inc.

Co-founder of a video encoding lab specializing in the VOD encoding needs of the IPTV industry, with emphasis on the VC-1 and H.264 codecs and the Microsoft Mediaroom platform.

August 2005 - June 2006   Software Developer, Microsoft Corporation

A software developer on Microsoft's next-generation TV product, the Mediaroom (IPTV) platform. Primarily responsible for STB client code, including SAP, audio sync, VOD playback, and general maintenance. Most work was on Windows CE 5.0 under Platform Builder, with some on Windows XP under Visual Studio 2005. Worked extensively with content in the VC-1 and H.264 formats, in both WMV and MPEG-2 TS bitstreams.

July 2003 - July 2005   Sr. Software Engineer, Akimbo Systems, Inc.

Created a new consumer electronics product using Windows CE 5.0, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows Media 9. Released in October 2004, and available on Amazon.com. Responsibilities included implementation of the Microsoft DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies on both client and server, and WMV9 playback technology on the STB client, including trick stream support. Also responsible for optimizing the WMV9 encoding profiles for the content to be hosted by the service to achieve maximum performance and quality, while maintaining bitrate compliance.

March 2003 - May 2003   MOTO Development Group / Microsoft Corporation

Developed an audio module for the Athena PC, a next-generation PC prototype shown at WinHEC 2003. Telephony functionality was implemented using DirectSound and packaged in a COM object.

November 2000 – December 2002   Director of Engineering, Storymail, Inc.

Provided engineering direction for the development of the StoryTeller engine on Win32, Mac, Palm and WinCE platforms, including ActiveX and Netscape Plugin hosts, AOL client support, and a POP3 proxy.

Designed StoryServer 2.0 API and backend to provide campaign management support, including tracking statistics and eCommerce.

Ported the StoryTeller engine to the WinCE platform, in particular the Pocket PC 2000 and Pocket PC 2002 environments.  Increased display performance by re-writing some video format transformations to take advantage of the hardware platform and the GAPI library to provide direct screen buffer access.

Developed a Microsoft .NET Server web service in C# to authenticate certificate validation requests.

Developed a Netscape plugin to host the StoryTeller client in Netscape browsers, along with SoftUpdate scripts for easy installation.

Refined techniques for delivery of Storymail-enabled rich email messages in accordance MIME, SMTP and POP3 specs, including rich AOL HTML-based emails.

October 1999 – October 2000   VP Engineering and CTO, Visualize Video Corporation

Architected the site infrastructure for a highly scalable, high availability Internet site with load balanced web and video servers and clustered SQL and mail servers, and a robust backend storage solution using EMC Symmetrix and Celerra servers.

Architected and lead the design and implementation of a next-generation video mail technology utilizing client-side compression and streaming video technology, using no file attachments and making the creation of video mails extremely easy for the user.

Client-side technologies include an ActiveX control for video encoding using the Microsoft Format SDK, and one for background uploading of video to our servers, which includes error recovery and abuse prevention techniques.  Client also detects and uses any VFW or WDM video and audio capture devices, with particular emphasis on USB cameras.

Server-side technologies include IIS as the web server, Java servlets, using Jrun as the run-time environment, SQL Server 7, and Mailsite mail server accessed using the Java Mail API.

As a founder of this company, also had responsibility for all competitor analysis, and for outsourcing comparative analysis, and price and contract negotiations.

February 1999 – October 1999   Consultant, PE BioSystems, Foster City, CA

Assisted in the development of DNA analysis software.  Taught a class on COM and educated Mac programmers on the Win32 platform and Microsoft development tools.  Responsible for the development of a component that searches protein databases such as Proteome.  Also designed the object models for all components of the BioToolbox (the organic subset) for the application, named Analyst.

December 1995 - February 1999   Principal Architect, Starlight Networks, Inc.

Responsibilities included visionary, architect, design lead, project manager and developer for a new product category called Network Delivery Management.  This product, released as StarCenter 1.0, addressed digital video content management and content delivery issues for streaming video deployments.  The product and the category it defined received tremendous support from industry analysts.  It was architected to be extremely flexible in implementation platforms and technologies, but the first implementation was with COM, Active Server and SQL Server technologies on Windows platforms. Lead a task force to design version 2 which would support digital video-based applications such as Corporate Communications solutions. Developed COM, DCOM and Java client/server objects for a specialized video kiosk application. Developed a VB component and VBA macros for a PowerPoint to JPEG/GIF export utility scriptable from an HTML page.

Designed and implemented ActiveMovie (now DirectShow) source filters to stream digital video from Starlight servers to Windows clients.  Later updated the source filter to support the Windows Media Player.

Architected a new line of client products based on COM, Winsock, ActiveX and Internet protocols to eliminate Starlight's kernel based, network redirector client which was non-operable with URL-based Internet technology and prone to system crashes because it resided in the kernel.  New clients were based on software component technology highly adaptable to web browser or custom application integration and resided in user space only.

Participated in a Market Validation special project to quantify the streaming video market segments and address product usage issues with existing customers.  Visited many current and prospective customers to gather information and formulated new product development plans based on feedback.

Lead designer and developer for a Windows NT streaming client, ported from a Win16 product.  The NT version was considerably faster and more reliable than the older one and was the basis for the next generation generic Win32 client.  Included Ring 0 kernel call hooking to enable a Ring 3 network redirector functionally equivalent client.

Initiated Starlight's first foray into the “Internet world” by designing and implementing a Netscape plugin to stream video from Starlight's servers to Windows clients.  Later architected the ActiveX version for IE.

March 1995 - November 1995   Vice-President of Engineering, The San Francisco Canyon Company, Inc.

Numerous responsibilities included project management for both Windows and Mac projects, LAN Administration, corporate administration and software architecture and development.  Personal projects included a realtime sound mix DLL for a children’s edutainment title developed for Mindscape; a project for Starlight Networks to provide MPEG capture, playback and multicasting capability via LAN or satellite for their StarCast product; technical management for the development team that wrote Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing for Kids for the Mac for Mindscape.  Also responsible for SourceSafe administration, Netware 3.12 LAN maintenance and development tool and technical support for a staff of nine developers working on 3-4 titles concurrently.

December 1994 - March 1995  Bröderbund Software

External project manager and developer for a specialized sprite-based codec for QuickTime for Windows.

October 1994 - December 1994  And Interactive

External project manager and developer for a Director XObject to provide MCI control of multi-vendor digital video playback from Director scripts.

April 1994 - October 1994  Apple Computer

Responsible for lead development and project management for QuickTime VR for Windows.  Tasks included porting two specialized user interfaces from the Macintosh to the Windows environment as a QuickTime component, specifically a panorama controller and an object controller, and also providing external control to Director Lingo scripts via a Director XObject interface.  Also had responsibility for the component and XObject infrastructures as well as converting supporting C++ classes to the Microsoft Visual C++ environment.  This product first appeared as part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual on CD-ROM from Simon & Schuster.  It implements a unique low-storage version of Virtual Reality patented by Apple’s Advanced Technology Group.

March 1994 - April 1994  Apple Computer

Implemented support for Music tracks in QuickTime for Windows 2.0.  QuickTime-format music data is processed, sequenced and converted into standard sequenced MIDI instructions, and the Windows multimedia timers are used to accurately deliver the MIDI events.  Contains dynamic channel usage optimizations to support as many instruments in a score as possible at run-time based on the user’s sound card and sound driver capabilities.

October 1993 - March 1994  Intel Corporation

Developed a QuickTime for Windows codec implementing Intel's HQV IV31 (Indeo) decompression algorithm.  Included optimization paths for a wide variety of run-time video hardware setups to provide the highest possible video quality at the greatest possible speed.  Included special routines for fast YUV to RGB color space conversion and smart dithering for 8-bit targets.  Performance exceeded expectations and surpassed performance of the Video for Windows version.

August 1993 - October 1993  Media Vision, Inc.

Developed a Windows DLL providing direct hardware write support and a faster replacement for DrawDibDraw for the Media Vision CD title "Quantum Gate" using Video for Windows.

May 1993 - June 1993  Starlight Networks, Inc.

Analysis and implementation recommendations for providing dynamic stream thinning technology for QuickTime for Windows and Video for Windows.  Detailed several techniques to scale digital video at the streaming server to maximize network video streams without exceeding available network bandwidth.

March 1992 - May 1993  Apple Computer

Responsible for planning and development of several components of Apple's QuickTime for Windows product, including coordinating efforts with other team members responsible for other areas.  For version 1.0 areas of responsibility included the Sound Manager, which converted Mac-format sound data to the appropriate Windows-format sound data for the sound card available at run-time, and also scaled the sound data for proper playback rates for the peculiar playback characteristics of a wide variety of sound cards.  Also responsible for the Application/QuickTime glue code that allowed Windows applications to be fully QuickTime-enabled if QuickTime was present, but otherwise un-hindered if it was not.  Developed the Data Handler for optimizing data streaming requirements peculiar to playing QuickTime movies from hard disk, network or CD-ROM.

Responsibilities with QuickTime for Windows 1.1 included evolving the glue code into a fully-functional Component Manager that is significantly superior to the dynamic linking capabilities available with the standard Windows DLL method.  Also performed other Data Handler, Sound Manager and Toolbox optimizations to improve data throughput, reduce CPU utilization, reduce I/O idle time, and increase video playback rates.  All code was developed in C++ or optimized 32-bit 80386 Assembly.

November 1991 - February 1992  Apple Computer

Co-developer of the QuickTime for Windows prototype that John Sculley demonstrated at the MacWorld 1992 keynote event.

Prior to November 1991

Worked on projects for clients such as NCR Corporation, Ungermann-Bass, Sprint, and DSC Communications Corporation.

Projects included development of a communications industry alarm monitoring system, including a multi-user, multi-tasking DOS based version and an OS/2 and Lan Manager version, and a multicast Enterprise Installation Manager application similar to Corporate Ghost.  Full project details are available in a full-length version of this resume.

Skills Summary:

Recent Industry Education:

Publications / Presentations / Industry Affiliations:

Columnist for Microsoft’s Windows XP Expert Zone.

Columnist for Win Tips in DV Web Video Magazine, a column dedicated to Microsoft Windows Media Technologies. (No longer published.)

Microsoft MVP for Windows XP Digital Media for 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Speaker at DV Expo in Long Beach, CA, March 2000 on the subject of automating backend video post-production procedures.

Technical Editor for Windows Media 9 Series by Example by Nels Johnson.