Facebook this week bought video optimisation specialist QuickFire Networks, a California-based start-up on a quest to mitigate the strain that video places on networks.

The company's T-Video platform combines high-end Intel processors with proprietary software in a bid to make real-time transcoding more efficient without compromising picture quality. Its aim is to significantly reduce the amount of time and bandwidth it usually takes to put high-quality video content online.

"QuickFire Networks was founded on the premise that the current network infrastructure is not sufficient to support the massive consumption of video that's happening online," said Craig Lee, CEO of QuickFire Networks, in a statement on the company's Website on Thursday.

"Now we're ready to take the next step in our growth," he said. "Facebook has more than one billion video views on average every day and we're thrilled to help deliver high-quality video experiences to all the people who consume video of Facebook."

Lee said "key members" of QuickFire's team will join Facebook and the business will wind down its operations.

Financial terms were not disclosed.