This talk will present a range of unusual programming techniques that were used in the development of a state-of-the-art H.264 software decoder (https://github.com/tvlabs/edge264), to drastically reduce code and binary size and improve speed. The techniques are applicable to other audio/video codecs, and will be presented as HOWTOs to help participants use them in their projects. It complements my talks from the last 2 years at FOSDEM, and will focus this time on (i) using YAML output as a cornerstone for debugging, testing and data-analysis, (ii) optimizing the infamous CABAC serial arithmetic decoder, and (iii) exploring the factors behind the choice of C for high-performance SIMD code.