After all of the hooting and hollering Google made over the release of their WebM video codec yesterday, I realised I knew very little at all about how video encoding on a computer actually works--a shameful admission for a self professed geek.

So, this morning as I sat and drank my latte, I attempted to read the Diary Of An x264 Developer. As I made my way through the blog, I discovered two things:

First, video streaming developers are, like, really smart.

Second, The coffee goggles? They do nothing.

No amount of caffiene will ever allow the uninitiated to fully understand the underlying complexity of what it takes to ensure that the video you just watched on your box's VLC player or that DVD you ripped with HandBrake working correctly. That said, Jason Garrett-Glaser, Diary Of An x264 Developer's writer, as well as the guy currently leading the charge to push the development of the open-source x264 software library forward, does his very best to make what goes on under the hood of the video encoding technologies we all enjoy and take for granted every day.

If you're looking for a fascinating behind the scenes peek at what makes video encoding tick, and some timely insight into what developers have in store for us in the near future, it's well worth your time to make a visit to Garrett-Glaser's site.