Google Purchases Green Parrot Pictures, Irish Video Technology Company

YouTube – which is owned by Google (News - Alert) – has purchased Green Parrot Pictures, a video technology company based in Ireland, according to a report from Reuters.

Details on the transaction were not released.

The company provides “intellectual licensing and high quality picture manipulation technology,” Reuters (News - Alert) said.

 Its technology has been used in well-known movies like "Lord of the Rings," "SpiderMan" and "King Kong.”

Based in Dublin, the company was founded in 2004 by CEO Anil Kokaram, who is an associate professor at Trinity College in Dublin.

Reuters said that Kokaram and his colleagues will relocate to California later this year.

It is believed based on news reports that YouTube could use Green Parrot's technology so subscribers can improve their videos – on different products, platforms and services for hundreds of millions of users, Green Parrot said.

The company provides an iPhone (News - Alert) app called Color Claw, which adjusts the color of pictures when compared to colors in another picture.

GreenParrotPictures was founded in 2004 as a digital video technology company offering IP licensing, consulting and software development, according to information on the company’s website.

“GreenParrotPictures anticipates a demand for high quality picture manipulation technology in a landscape of personal, home and broadcast devices with varying performance characteristics,” the company website added. “To the consumer, that landscape is flat and the expectation is increasingly that picture content should be of a high quality regardless of the device. This places demands on manufacturers of equipment and production of content. GPP has developed a suite of video IP that manifests in different products and satisfies the need for content manipulation at high quality.”

In other news about YouTube (News - Alert), TMCnet reports that some research institutions have begun to rank China's video websites. According to the list of 1,000 most-visited sites worldwide for January 2011 issued by Doubleclick Ad Planner, YouTube ranks second only to Facebook (News - Alert) with a reach rate of 32.2 percent, while China's top three video websites Youku.com, Tudou.com and 56.com ranked 14th, 21st and 34th respectively, TMCnet said.