Sloot Digital Coding System

Rinox · Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:22 pm

Saw the documentary on this yesterday (maybe J did too), you've gotta read/see this thing! The story of a small-time engineer who came up with a new way of coding that could revolutionize storage...and died suddenly before working it out with his business partners, his knowledge lost. And on top of that, all the data and the prototype he had mysteriously disappeared after his death as well...true story. Read this:


	Quote: I published this story on a Dutch web log (in Dutch) and it received a few thousand reads within one month. This series is a translation of the original Dutch series. It is a true story (11 parts) based upon an investigation by Quote magazine in 2001. Its all about a simple electronics engineer who claimed to have invented a new and revolutionary way of compressing video and audio signals. Enabling the industry to store entire video movies (up to 64 of 1.5 hour each) on a single chipcard with only 64 Kb of memory. Sounds incredible ? It sure is. However the Dutch inventor, Jan Sloot, managed to convince some important hot shots from all over the world of the significance of his technology.....In the end millions were invested and spent on his invention...And Jan Sloot died under very strange circomstances....Taking his knowledge with him in his grave...Translating the entire story will take some time, at least once a week an episode of the story will be posted. One of my former colleagues, Pieter Spronck, posted an interesting view on Sloots invention and the people involved at his personal website....We also created a brand new forum on the subject.... Read on... Amsterdam, Thursday March 4, 1999 It is 3 o'clock in the afternoon. A group of people is walking to the huge office building towering above the city of Amsterdam. A kitchensalesman, a construction company representative, an electronic engineer with his son, a successful investor from Nijmegen and a former chairman of WorldOnline. When entering the Rembrandt Tower they exchange excited looks. In a meeting room on the 12th floor the group patiently awaited the coming of the man who, one year before, was welcomed as the crown prince of the Dutch electronics company Philips, Roel Pieper. With trembling hands the 54 year old electronics engineer Jan Sloot connects a 24" monitor to a black box, no larger then 5 packs of cigarettes. Sloot silently bends over his equipment which he will demonstrate in a couple of minutes. He has been working hard until late the night before putting a few extra films on his very odd videorecorder. He concludes all is working as expected and joins his son Ben at the large table in the room. At the other end of the table, near the entrance to the room, sits kitchentrader Leo Mierop. Opposite to Leo sits Marcel Boekhoorn with his infinite grin on his face. Marcel is a successful specialist in company takeovers and mergers. The place in between them has been kept free for Roel Pieper. Caught in oilpaint, the godfather of Dutch high-tech, Frits Philips, is watching the party from one of the walls of the room. The door swings open and the tall Roel Pieper enters the room, followed by Philips research scientist Carel Jan van Driel. After the usual handshakes, smalltalk and business card exchange Jan Sloot starts demonstrating his invention. The electronics engineer switches on the monitor, and inserts a white smartcard with an embedded 64Kb chip in the little black box connected to the monitor. On the 64Kb chip a code is present capable of showing 16 complete movies on the monitor screen. Everyone is watching Pieper and Van Driel.... Leo Mierop remembers clearly...Pieper was watching the box and monitor....His mouth literally fell open....Out loud he asked himself whether there were really 16 movies being played completely and simultaneously. Sloot pressed "stop" and asked "Tell me what you want to see"... One by one Jan rewinds and fast forwards every movie. Pieper was startled and amazed. You could tell by the look on his face. "Thats IT!" he barely was capable of saying. Marcel Boekhoorn : 'They actually placed their ears onto the box to check whether there were moving parts inside like a harddisk'. Pieper and Van driel were amazed. Imagine, Jan Sloot had shown he was capable of storing 16 entire movies on one simple 64Kb chip. He even claimed 64 would fit just as easy...That stands for a compression factor of 2,000,000 ! With this technology all movies ever recorded could be burned on one single CD !. Or, on one CD ALL CD's ever recorded in the entire world.... Everyone could figure the importance of such an invention. UPC say bye bye to all your investments in glassfiber infrastructure....Bury UMTS and sweep the entire hight-tech world under the carpet. You dont need to be a rocket scientist to understand this technology would change the world. Pieper turned out to be more then interested. He originally planned no more then 20 minutes for this meeting, Van Mierop recalls. Afterwards he would meet someone of the English Embassy. Well, the embassy had to reschedule that meeting ! Engineer Van Driel, who watched the demonstration full of unbelieve, was dismissed. After he signed the papers stating he would not let out any information about what he had seen and after he left the room, the meeting lasted for at least another hour. The slightly nervous athmosphere in the room was changed into one of excitement and curiousity. Mierop: 'Pieper asked Sloot one question after another. He just could not mask the excitement that struck him. At the end of the meeting, Pieper said he would get in touch again within a couple of weeks for another appointment. A couple of weeks ? In a matter of minutes, just after we left Amsterdam, Marcel's cellphone rang.....Pieper... Next episode will follow shortly. Follow the entire series through the "Topics" link and scroll to "Feuilletons". Note: The Dutch TV show "Netwerk" covered this story in 2 episodes. A book has been published (in Dutch) titled : De broncode Author Eric Smit ISBN 90 5759 156 1

I don't know if the book written about it ('De broncode' or 'The Sourcecode') has been translated to English yet. But a guy has subtitled the entire documentary in (sometimes shabby, but it does the job) English. Go to

http://www.liveartists.com/modules.php? ... w_topic=24

to download all parts. I seriously recommend you do this...us Dutch-speakers can go around the net and find Dutch sources for this, but for the Satises of the board this is the best info you'll find about the thing.

It sounds almost unreal, and Sloot probably exaggerated his invention, but still...some of the guys involved are super-big shots in the technology industry (Roel Pieper, Tom Perkins) ready to invest millions. And the fact that his attick was mysteriously cleaned out after his death suggests that someone or a corporation still got its hands on it after all...it's probably only a matter of time an adapted version of the code comes out, with the dead man's family not seeing a cent of the incomes.

Again, very much recommended. Peace out.

Sloot Digital Coding System

Who is online