How would a CS degree help with any of that? I'm someone with experience in weird uber-specific, low-level areas of computer graphics/imaging with no CS degree, and none of the CS graduates I know have been taught those things at university.
Some PhDs and math students yes (at least, with regards to the algorithmic portions), but otherwise you have to learn the low-level esoteric stuff on your own, or be lucky enough to have a specialized optional course at your university.
And the cutting-edge will rarely be available to undergraduates anyway. All my CS graduate colleagues learned about codecs was how to compute a DCT by hand - they certainly didn't learn the modern 4x4 and 8x8 spatial block transform approximations as used in h264, or any motion vector calculation algorithms, or the x86_64 SIMD intrinsics, or any of the modern entropy coding methods.
I agree. Nothing in a typical CS degree would help with this. Maybe if your Masters was specifically in this obscure part of the field. On the other hand, I used to work in the video game industry where degrees (used to be) relatively rare and I probably knew 12 different guys who could optimize this kind of thing in their sleep.
Some PhDs and math students yes (at least, with regards to the algorithmic portions), but otherwise you have to learn the low-level esoteric stuff on your own, or be lucky enough to have a specialized optional course at your university.
And the cutting-edge will rarely be available to undergraduates anyway. All my CS graduate colleagues learned about codecs was how to compute a DCT by hand - they certainly didn't learn the modern 4x4 and 8x8 spatial block transform approximations as used in h264, or any motion vector calculation algorithms, or the x86_64 SIMD intrinsics, or any of the modern entropy coding methods.