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SMPTE, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers announced this year's twelve SMPTE Fellows. "This honor is conferred on individuals who have, through their proficiency and contributions to the industry, attained an outstanding rank among members of the Society". SMPTE is a key standardisation body in the motion image and entertainment industry. It celebrated its hundredth anniversary last year.
The society also awarded a number of awards and prizes to recognise peoples' work in advancing motion image technology. Including a Presidential Proclamation, basically a lifetime achievement award for Mark Schubin, recognizing his half a century developing and promoting video technology.
The new SMPTE 2017 Fellows are:
Daniel G. Baker, Chief Engineer at Tektronix
Daniel G. Baker was one of the key architects for the Tek 1700 Series Waveform Monitors as well as the digital signal and eye-pattern processing in Tektronix's WFM Series Serial-Digital Waveform Monitor products. In 1999, Baker received the Howard Vollum Award, Tektronix's highest engineering award, and became a Tektronix Fellow. He is a longtime member of both SMPTE and IEEE, providing technical support for numerous video standards including DVB and EBU. Baker is a co-author of two papers published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal and has more than 40 patents in video signal and image processing, with several more pending. He is currently working on new high-dynamic-range (HDR) and wide color gamut (WCG) imaging measurement methods, as well as a no-reference (NR) video quality measurement. Baker has bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering, with current academic studies in advanced digital signal processing and machine learning applied to image processing.
David George Brooks, Senior Director of Technology Strategy in the Office of the CTO at Dolby Laboratories
David George Brooks has spent 40 years working on imaging for consumer electronics and professional broadcast, including managing the research programs for Snell (now SAM) in the U.K. and Thomson (now Technicolor) in France and Germany. He has led projects ranging from the design of the first HD MPEG-2 chipset to the algorithms behind the Alchemist HD standards converter. Brooks has played an active role in standards from the early 1980s, beginning with the 8mm camcorder, then moving to the EU 1250/50 HDMAC HDTV standard, the SMPTE/EBU Task Force and its numerous resulting SMPTE standards, and the Ultra-HD HDR Blu-ray format, and now the HDR standards currently in development with organizations that include the ITU-R, SMPTE, ATSC, DVB, and ARIB. Since joining Dolby in 2009, Brooks has concentrated on HDR system definition for both postproduction and live content, from capture and creation to consumer display, while always ensuring that artistic intent is maintained throughout the ecosystem.
Jean-Pierre Evain, Principal Project Manager at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
Jean-Pierre Evain joined the EBU's technology department in 1992 following six years in the research and development laboratories of France-Telecom (CCETT) and Deutsche Telekom. He has worked on set-top-box middleware, such as the digital video broadcasting (DVB) specifications of Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) and copy protection signaling, and chaired metadata activities for the TV-Anytime consortium that actively maintains specifications on behalf of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). With an initial focus on microwaves, Evain now manages EBU activities such as metadata for news, production, and sports. He is the co-author of several key EBU metadata specifications, as well as specifications for AES, IPTC, MPEG, SMPTE, and W3C. For the past decade, Evain has been promoting the use of semantic technologies and service-oriented architectures (SOAs), including the Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) in the broadcasting industry. Evain is a graduate of École Nationale Supérieure de l'Électronique et de ses Applications (ENSEA).
David Leitner, Director, Producer, and Cinematographer at Leitner Studio
David Leitner is an active director, producer, writer, speaker, industry consultant, and Emmy®-nominated director of photography (Chuck Close: "Portrait in Progress") with 80+ credits in feature-length dramas and documentaries, including eight Sundance Film Festival premieres. Leitner co-produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary "For All Mankind," for which he spent nine months at NASA's Johnson Space Center restoring 16mm lunar footage. He also has photographed hour-long documentaries on iconic writers, artists, and architects for New York's Checkerboard Film Foundation. In his role as director of new technology at DuArt Film & Video in New York, he innovated optical printing, camera lens testing, and film-to-tape transfer and played a key role in introducing Super 16 to the U.S. Leitner also served as senior contributing editor at "Millimeter" magazine and remains an ongoing contributor to the textbook classic, "The Filmmaker's Handbook." He has served on the board of managers of the SMPTE New York Section.
David Long, Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology
David Long is also this year's recipient of the SMPTE Journal Certificate of Merit. He joined the faculty of the School of Film and Animation at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in 2007 and is currently program chair and associate professor for the Motion Picture Science bachelor's program. His research interests include engineering multispectral video capture/display systems and studying variability in human color vision for artistic applications. Previously, Long was development engineer and imaging scientist for Eastman Kodak's Entertainment Imaging Division. He has earned numerous patents and a 2008 Scientific and Technical Academy Award for contributions made to the design of Vision2 films. Long is secretary/treasurer and past chair of the Rochester Section of SMPTE and a member of the Digital Cinema Society (DCS). He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a master's degree from the University of Rochester, and a doctorate in color science from RIT.
Charles S. Meyer, Chief Technology Officer at Grass Valley, a Belden Brand
Charles S. Meyer is responsible for advanced technology development for live production and networking products. He began his technology career in 1979 at Atari Inc., working at the company's research and development laboratory, code-named Cyan Engineering. Meyer went on to become president and CEO of NVision Inc., where he pioneered the development of high-definition television routing and distribution equipment, as well as digital audio technologies over a span of 22 years. Meyer has more than 28 patents, including techniques for digital audio, HDTV, and fiber-optic signal timing and transmission. He has worked in various roles, including engineering, technical management, and strategic marketing at the executive level. Meyer has focused on the objective of providing technical leadership during the transition of the broadcast industry to IP, with an emphasis on data transport and clock-recovery technologies. He also has an extensive background in integrated circuit (IC) and CPU design.
Arjun Ramamurthy, Senior Vice President of Technology at Twentieth Century Fox
With more than 25 years of experience in postproduction, Arjun Ramamurthy is responsible for outlining and defining the next-generation workflow and technology utilized for feature and TV postproduction, digital content processing and downstream distribution, and digital archiving at Twentieth Century Fox. He served previously with Deluxe's EFILM facility and, before that, in technical operations and feature animation at Warner Bros. Ramamurthy is an active member of SMPTE, the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA), and IEEE, as well as an active contributor to the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) effort, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS), Academy Color Encoding System (ACES), and various standards for SMPTE. He holds several patents in the areas of digital image processing and media postproduction.
Bill Redmann, Director of Standards and Immersive Media Technologies at Technicolor
Bill Redmann is a creative technologist and inventor who has designed social, interactive, and new media technologies for Technicolor, where he is a fellow and senior software engineer. His experience includes virtual reality (VR), telepresence systems, entertainment simulators, theme park attractions, holography, other 3D techniques, seminal wearables technology, and puzzle design for the alternate reality games "The Beast" and "I Love Bees." Outside of Technicolor, Redmann dabbles in electric vehicle infrastructure and driver safety systems. He has been granted some 50 patents, is an active member of SMPTE, and has a master's degree in engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Edward Reuss, Consulting Engineer
Edward Reuss specializes in video, audio, and Wi-Fi networks, particularly for very-low-latency applications. After earning his master's degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University, Reuss worked in test and measurement at Hewlett Packard (now Keysight), Tektronix, and Wavetek. He switched to television on the General Instrument Eurocypher project for British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). Later, Reuss became director of systems engineering for Tiernan Communications, developing real-time MPEG-2 video encoders for satellite news gathering and HDTV. He also served as senior systems engineer for Doppler Labs, developing advanced programmable earbuds providing user-controlled DSP filters for changing the way users hear the world around them. Recently, Reuss has consulted for GoPro, Intel, Clair Global, TiVo, Comcast, and Socionext. He is a co-chair of the SMPTE Technical Committee for Coding of Essence (TC-10E). Reuss is also a senior member of the IEEE and is involved with the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Working Group.
Peter Storer Jr., Executive Vice President at MediAnswers.TV
Peter Storer Jr. was born into broadcasting — both his father, Peter Storer Sr. and grandfather, George B. Storer, were major players in the industry. After attending Harvard College, Storer began his career in the network sales department of CBS. In 1986, he founded his broadcast software firm, StorerTV, which was sold to SintecMedia in 2012 — at which time Storer joined SMPTE Fellow Chris Lennon to launch MediAnswers. During the 25 years that he ran StorerTV, Storer worked with hundreds of broadcast and cable clients, including CBS, ABC/Disney, Comcast, Univision, Corus Entertainment, and TV Global. With Lennon, he helped to create the Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF) and continues as its primary document editor. He has also been active in industry organizations such as SMPTE, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Storer is the chairman of the George B. Storer Foundation and a board member and IT chair of the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association.
Peter Weitzel
Peter Weitzel joined the BBC Studio Capital Projects Department in 1978, serving in the projects function for most of his career and, in that role, mentoring more than 250 trainees. Weitzel installed the first GVG 300 PAL switcher and a complex multistage, software-controlled vision system for BBC Sport. In 1989, he managed the team that completely replaced the BBC's television core infrastructure with his common architecture design. He led the EBU team that standardized Teletext and defined the first EPG and DVB subtitles within ETSI, and he also led European work on audio and video description that specified an object audio signal system for digital television. By 2000, Weitzel had become a recognized expert for various commercial broadcast projects worldwide. In 2003, he introduced audio and video over IP over standard IT wide area network (WAN) to the BBC, and in 2008, he served as the project director for the first international transmission of NHK Super Hi-Vision in cooperation with the BBC. In 2012, Weitzel became the secretary/treasurer of the newly reformed SMPTE U.K. Section and supported it to become the third largest SMPTE Section.
Leigh Alvin Myles Whitcomb, Architect at Imagine Communications
Leigh Whitcomb joined Imagine Communications in 1991. He participates in the SMPTE Standards Community, as well as the Video Services Forum (VSF), and the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) committees, including active involvement on the SMPTE ST 2110 committee for Professional Media Over Managed IP, the SMPTE ST 2022 family of standards, and SMPTE ST 2059 Genlock Over IP. Whitcomb is the chair of the SMPTE Toronto Section. His other professional affiliations include IEEE and Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). Whitcomb holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo and a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto. He is the co-inventor of several patented technologies in the area of timing and synchronization.
A list of awards are awarded to society memebers. Honorary Membership is the Society's highest accolade. It recognizes individuals who have performed distinguished service in the advancement of engineering in motion pictures, television, or in the allied arts and sciences. Honorary Members who have passed away are named to the SMPTE Honor Roll, which also posthumously recognizes individuals who were not awarded Honorary Membership during their lifetimes but whose contributions would have been sufficient to warrant such an honor.
This year Renville "Ren" H. McMann Jr. (1927 – 2015) will be inducted into the Honor Roll in recognition of his award-winning leadership in the development of television and imaging technology. McMann held more than 36 patents for inventions that include the electronic video recorder, the electronic image enhancer, the color camera system, and the magnetic scan conversion techniques used by NASA to bring color television images from the moon to viewers around the world. He was the principal inventor for and a major participant in projects such as the development of the CBS Minicam Mark VI, the first handheld color TV camera. A tireless and curious engineer, McMann made many contributions to the advancement of color television signal processing and image gathering technology. Along with those contributions, his pioneering work in the field of high-definition television systems has garnered worldwide recognition.
The Progress Medal is the most prestigious SMPTE award, and it recognizes outstanding technical contributions to the progress of engineering phases of the motion picture, television, or motion-imaging industries.
SMPTE is presenting the 2017 Progress Medal to Paul E. Debevec in recognition of his achievements and ongoing work in pioneering techniques for illuminating computer-generated objects based on measurement of real-world illumination and their effective commercial application in numerous Hollywood films. Techniques from his research have been used to dramatic effect in films such as the "The Matrix" sequels, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "District 9," "Avatar," "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," and "Life of Pi." Debevec is also a pioneer in high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging and co-author of the 2005 book "High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display, and Image-Based Lighting," now in its second edition.
The Camera Origination and Imaging Medal recognizes significant technical achievements related to inventions or advances in imaging technology, including sensors, imaging processing electronics, and the overall embodiment and application of image capture devices. David S. Corley will receive the award for his five decades of continuous innovation in measurement and calibration tools for image acquisition, display, and color correction.
The David Sarnoff Medal recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques or equipment that have improved the engineering phases of television technology, including large-venue presentations. The award will be presented to Phillip Bennett in recognition of his significant contributions to the broadcast industry with his work in video effects, still stores, and digital standards conversion during the dawning of the digital video era. Over the years, Bennett has developed many groundbreaking products for broadcasters, including the very successful Ampex Digital Optics (ADO) digital video effects system and one of the very early digital disk recorders.
The Digital Processing Medal recognizes significant technical achievements related to the development of digital processing of content for cinema, television, games, or other related media. Michael A. Isnardi will receive the award for his contributions to the art of digital video delivery systems, including video encoding, re-encoding, and quality evaluation. Isnardi's body of work includes one of the first advanced television systems proposals, encoder, compressed-domain watermarking the first real-time Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), Emmy® Award-winning MPEG Compliance Bitstreams, compressed-domain bit rate reduction, salience-based compression, and JND evaluation of JPEG 2000 for digital cinema applications. His current work includes sub-Nyquist compressed sensing and skin-tone analysis algorithms.
The James A. Lindner Archival Technology Medal, sponsored by James A. Linder, recognizes significant technical advancements or contributions related to the invention or development of technology, techniques, workflows, or infrastructure for the long-term storage, archive, or preservation of media content essence. The 2017 award will be presented to James M. Reilly for his more than three decades of contributions to image preservation and sustainable preservation practices. In 1985, Reilly founded the Image Permanence Institute, a non-profit, university-based laboratory devoted to preservation research — the world's largest independent laboratory with this specific scope. As its founder and director, Reilly studied the mechanisms of film deterioration and developed technology, techniques, and preservation strategies to lengthen its life in storage.
The Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal, sponsored by Warner Bros., recognizes outstanding contributions in the design and development of new and improved methods and/or apparatus for motion picture sound, at any step in the process. The award will be presented to Mark Robert Gander in recognition of his contributions to the design and development of cinema loudspeaker systems. Gander has brought a comprehensive perspective to these efforts and has been responsible for every aspect of bringing a new loudspeaker design to market, from transducer engineering through logistics of manufacture and distribution to the signature marketing of the JBL Professional cinema product line. In his four decades devoted to the highest fidelity cinema sound reproduction, Gander has influenced cinema loudspeaker design industrywide.
The Technicolor — Herbert T. Kalmus Medal, sponsored by Technicolor, Inc., recognizes outstanding contributions that reflect a commitment to the highest standards of quality and innovation in motion picture postproduction and distribution services. The award will be presented to Joseph Goldstone for his innovations in the design and implementation of hardware and software to perform the accurate analysis and characterization of photochemical film processes, including film printing, which have been used in color management systems by the motion picture industry. Goldstone's early work involved the creation and refinement of film scanning and recording processes used for visual effects (VFX) creation at Digital Domain and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He was a pioneer in incorporating color science theory into digital production and postproduction workflows, and he is currently working on digital image processing for the ALEXA camera systems at ARRI. Goldstone is a key contributor to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) and serves on several SMPTE Technology Committees (TCs): TC-10E DG Dynamic Metadata for Color Transforms of HDR and WCG Images, TC-32NF-40 DG HDR and WCG Signaling on Streaming Interfaces, and TC-31FS DG Constrained DPX for HDR.
The Workflow Systems Medal, sponsored by Leon Silverman, recognizes outstanding contributions related to the development and integration of workflows, such as integrated processes, end-to-end systems or industry ecosystem innovations that enhance creativity, collaboration, and efficiency, or novel approaches to the production, postproduction, or distribution process. The award will be presented to Randy Ubillos in recognition of his role in establishing the foundation of accessible and affordable digital nonlinear editing software that fundamentally shaped the industry landscape and changed the way visual stories are created and told. Ubillos' revolutionary work with creating and designing lower-cost editing software such as Final Cut Pro® and Adobe® Premiere® shifted the film and television industry toward a more inclusive future, giving storytellers of diverse backgrounds and experience levels the ability to tell their stories and rise as filmmakers, technicians, engineers, and key players in every facet of media and entertainment. His work significantly enhanced and transformed the world of postproduction, popularizing and commoditizing file-based workflows while removing significant barriers to the creative editing process for millions of users worldwide.
Each year, one SMPTE Journal Award is presented to the author of the most outstanding paper originally published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal during the preceding calendar year. The SMPTE Journal Award will be presented to Sean T. McCarthy for the article "How Independent Are HDR, WCG, and HFR in Human Visual Perception and the Creative Process?" published in the May/June 2016 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
Two Journal Certificates of Merit will be presented to:
Katy C. Noland for the article "High Frame Rate Television: Sampling Theory, the Human Visual System, and Why the Nyquist–Shannon Theorem Does Not Apply," published in the April 2016 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
David Long and Mark D. Fairchild for the article "Observer Metamerism Models and Multiprimary Display Systems," published in the April 2016 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
The Student Paper Award recognizes the outstanding paper prepared and submitted by a Student Member. The paper receiving the Student Paper Award will be published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
The 2017 award will be presented to Elizabeth DoVale, a recent graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, for her paper "High Frame Rate Psychophysics: Experimentation to Determine a JND for Frame Rate."
Jonathan Bouchard, a student at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada, will receive an honorable mention for his paper "Quality Control of Stereoscopic 3-D Compositing Using Half-Occlusion Geometry."
The Presidential Proclamation recognizes individuals of established and outstanding status and reputation in the motion picture, television, and motion-imaging industries worldwide. Mark Schubin will receive the award in recognition of his five decades of contributions to the television technology industry. An internationally recognized expert with an insatiable intellectual curiosity, Schubin has worked in every aspect of television production, including design, manufacturing, lighting, sound, camera, editing, distribution, as well as talent, and his projects have spanned every continent of the globe. Today, he supports the broadcasting of Metropolitan Opera (The Met) productions to cinemas and televisions around the world. Schubin is an active SMPTE Life Fellow and a sought-after resource in educating the industry on the history and current state of motion-imaging technology.
The Excellence in Standards Award recognizes individuals or companies that have been actively involved in advancing the Society's standards activities and processes. Johann Safar will receive this award in recognition of his continuous participation in SMPTE's standards work for more than 30 years. Safar has contributed to the development of countless standards related to the compression and formatting of multimedia content for storage on analog and digital media, as well as the development of Time Code, ancillary data formatting and mapping. He is a careful reviewer of SMPTE standards, with a focus on ensuring harmonization and compatibility of interrelated standards across multiple technology committees. Safar's dedicated performance in the SMPTE Standards Community has resulted in a high quality of professional standards documents.
The Society Citation recognizes individuals or companies that have actively been involved in specific Society engineering or editorial functions. Elizabeth "Betty" Migliore will receive this award in recognition of her 45 years of service with SMPTE and her contributions to the standards program. A dedicated and loyal staff member, Migliore joined SMPTE in November of 1972 as secretary to the staff director of engineering. Over the years, she has been steadfast in supporting SMPTE's standards work as engineering assistant and standards publisher, roles in which she actively supported document preparation for the SMPTE Technology Committees. In these roles, Migliore participated in advancing SMPTE's standards publishing process from typewriter to CD-ROM to PDF and the digital library.
The Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society, which recognizes individuals for dedicated service for the betterment of the Society over a sustained period, will be conferred upon four SMPTE Members:
Merrick Ackermans, for his contributions to and leadership of the Atlanta Section and the Southern Region. A long-time contributor to the Atlanta Section and four-term governor of the Southern Region, Ackermans has devoted much time and effort to producing quality Section events. His extensive involvement has included participation in everything from proposing engaging topics, securing speakers, and organizing facility and audio-visual logistics to contributing his knowledge as a speaker and facilitator.
Herbert Jay Dunmore, for his contributions as Member and manager of the Washington DC SMPTE Section and as the Student Chapter advisor of the Loyola University Maryland Chapter since its founding in 2012. Dunmore has continually promoted learning between the Student Chapter and the Section through hosting an annual meeting and seminars, exposing future professionals to the creative, business, and technical realms of television production.
John Walsh, for his dedication and service to the SMPTE Australia Section over the past decade. Walsh has served on the board of the SMPTE Australia Section since 2005, taking on the additional roles of membership chair and Section meeting lead. He has also been an active member of the organizing committee for the biennial SMPTE Australia Section conferences. Walsh is a dedicated Section member, always working behind the scenes to ensure the success of the Australia Section meetings.
David Wheeler, for his many contributions to the Australia Section, especially the SMPTE Australia Conferences. Wheeler was a member of the Conference Papers Committee for the SMPTE 2013 Australia Conference and served as chair of that committee for the 2015 event with 16 sessions and 52 presentations spanning four days.
The Louis F. Wolf Jr. Memorial Scholarship is designed to assist students in furthering their undergraduate or graduate studies in motion pictures and television, with an emphasis on technology. The 2017 scholarship will be awarded to three SMPTE Student Members:
Trevor Canham, Rochester Institute of Technology
Emily Faw, Rochester Institute of Technology
Catherine Marie Meininger, Rochester Institute of Technology
The society also awarded a number of awards and prizes to recognise peoples' work in advancing motion image technology. Including a Presidential Proclamation, basically a lifetime achievement award for Mark Schubin, recognizing his half a century developing and promoting video technology.
The new SMPTE 2017 Fellows are:
Daniel G. Baker, Chief Engineer at Tektronix
Daniel G. Baker was one of the key architects for the Tek 1700 Series Waveform Monitors as well as the digital signal and eye-pattern processing in Tektronix's WFM Series Serial-Digital Waveform Monitor products. In 1999, Baker received the Howard Vollum Award, Tektronix's highest engineering award, and became a Tektronix Fellow. He is a longtime member of both SMPTE and IEEE, providing technical support for numerous video standards including DVB and EBU. Baker is a co-author of two papers published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal and has more than 40 patents in video signal and image processing, with several more pending. He is currently working on new high-dynamic-range (HDR) and wide color gamut (WCG) imaging measurement methods, as well as a no-reference (NR) video quality measurement. Baker has bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering, with current academic studies in advanced digital signal processing and machine learning applied to image processing.
David George Brooks, Senior Director of Technology Strategy in the Office of the CTO at Dolby Laboratories
David George Brooks has spent 40 years working on imaging for consumer electronics and professional broadcast, including managing the research programs for Snell (now SAM) in the U.K. and Thomson (now Technicolor) in France and Germany. He has led projects ranging from the design of the first HD MPEG-2 chipset to the algorithms behind the Alchemist HD standards converter. Brooks has played an active role in standards from the early 1980s, beginning with the 8mm camcorder, then moving to the EU 1250/50 HDMAC HDTV standard, the SMPTE/EBU Task Force and its numerous resulting SMPTE standards, and the Ultra-HD HDR Blu-ray format, and now the HDR standards currently in development with organizations that include the ITU-R, SMPTE, ATSC, DVB, and ARIB. Since joining Dolby in 2009, Brooks has concentrated on HDR system definition for both postproduction and live content, from capture and creation to consumer display, while always ensuring that artistic intent is maintained throughout the ecosystem.
Jean-Pierre Evain, Principal Project Manager at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
Jean-Pierre Evain joined the EBU's technology department in 1992 following six years in the research and development laboratories of France-Telecom (CCETT) and Deutsche Telekom. He has worked on set-top-box middleware, such as the digital video broadcasting (DVB) specifications of Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) and copy protection signaling, and chaired metadata activities for the TV-Anytime consortium that actively maintains specifications on behalf of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). With an initial focus on microwaves, Evain now manages EBU activities such as metadata for news, production, and sports. He is the co-author of several key EBU metadata specifications, as well as specifications for AES, IPTC, MPEG, SMPTE, and W3C. For the past decade, Evain has been promoting the use of semantic technologies and service-oriented architectures (SOAs), including the Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) in the broadcasting industry. Evain is a graduate of École Nationale Supérieure de l'Électronique et de ses Applications (ENSEA).
David Leitner, Director, Producer, and Cinematographer at Leitner Studio
David Leitner is an active director, producer, writer, speaker, industry consultant, and Emmy®-nominated director of photography (Chuck Close: "Portrait in Progress") with 80+ credits in feature-length dramas and documentaries, including eight Sundance Film Festival premieres. Leitner co-produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary "For All Mankind," for which he spent nine months at NASA's Johnson Space Center restoring 16mm lunar footage. He also has photographed hour-long documentaries on iconic writers, artists, and architects for New York's Checkerboard Film Foundation. In his role as director of new technology at DuArt Film & Video in New York, he innovated optical printing, camera lens testing, and film-to-tape transfer and played a key role in introducing Super 16 to the U.S. Leitner also served as senior contributing editor at "Millimeter" magazine and remains an ongoing contributor to the textbook classic, "The Filmmaker's Handbook." He has served on the board of managers of the SMPTE New York Section.
David Long, Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology
David Long is also this year's recipient of the SMPTE Journal Certificate of Merit. He joined the faculty of the School of Film and Animation at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in 2007 and is currently program chair and associate professor for the Motion Picture Science bachelor's program. His research interests include engineering multispectral video capture/display systems and studying variability in human color vision for artistic applications. Previously, Long was development engineer and imaging scientist for Eastman Kodak's Entertainment Imaging Division. He has earned numerous patents and a 2008 Scientific and Technical Academy Award for contributions made to the design of Vision2 films. Long is secretary/treasurer and past chair of the Rochester Section of SMPTE and a member of the Digital Cinema Society (DCS). He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a master's degree from the University of Rochester, and a doctorate in color science from RIT.
Charles S. Meyer, Chief Technology Officer at Grass Valley, a Belden Brand
Charles S. Meyer is responsible for advanced technology development for live production and networking products. He began his technology career in 1979 at Atari Inc., working at the company's research and development laboratory, code-named Cyan Engineering. Meyer went on to become president and CEO of NVision Inc., where he pioneered the development of high-definition television routing and distribution equipment, as well as digital audio technologies over a span of 22 years. Meyer has more than 28 patents, including techniques for digital audio, HDTV, and fiber-optic signal timing and transmission. He has worked in various roles, including engineering, technical management, and strategic marketing at the executive level. Meyer has focused on the objective of providing technical leadership during the transition of the broadcast industry to IP, with an emphasis on data transport and clock-recovery technologies. He also has an extensive background in integrated circuit (IC) and CPU design.
Arjun Ramamurthy, Senior Vice President of Technology at Twentieth Century Fox
With more than 25 years of experience in postproduction, Arjun Ramamurthy is responsible for outlining and defining the next-generation workflow and technology utilized for feature and TV postproduction, digital content processing and downstream distribution, and digital archiving at Twentieth Century Fox. He served previously with Deluxe's EFILM facility and, before that, in technical operations and feature animation at Warner Bros. Ramamurthy is an active member of SMPTE, the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA), and IEEE, as well as an active contributor to the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) effort, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS), Academy Color Encoding System (ACES), and various standards for SMPTE. He holds several patents in the areas of digital image processing and media postproduction.
Bill Redmann, Director of Standards and Immersive Media Technologies at Technicolor
Bill Redmann is a creative technologist and inventor who has designed social, interactive, and new media technologies for Technicolor, where he is a fellow and senior software engineer. His experience includes virtual reality (VR), telepresence systems, entertainment simulators, theme park attractions, holography, other 3D techniques, seminal wearables technology, and puzzle design for the alternate reality games "The Beast" and "I Love Bees." Outside of Technicolor, Redmann dabbles in electric vehicle infrastructure and driver safety systems. He has been granted some 50 patents, is an active member of SMPTE, and has a master's degree in engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Edward Reuss, Consulting Engineer
Edward Reuss specializes in video, audio, and Wi-Fi networks, particularly for very-low-latency applications. After earning his master's degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University, Reuss worked in test and measurement at Hewlett Packard (now Keysight), Tektronix, and Wavetek. He switched to television on the General Instrument Eurocypher project for British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). Later, Reuss became director of systems engineering for Tiernan Communications, developing real-time MPEG-2 video encoders for satellite news gathering and HDTV. He also served as senior systems engineer for Doppler Labs, developing advanced programmable earbuds providing user-controlled DSP filters for changing the way users hear the world around them. Recently, Reuss has consulted for GoPro, Intel, Clair Global, TiVo, Comcast, and Socionext. He is a co-chair of the SMPTE Technical Committee for Coding of Essence (TC-10E). Reuss is also a senior member of the IEEE and is involved with the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Working Group.
Peter Storer Jr., Executive Vice President at MediAnswers.TV
Peter Storer Jr. was born into broadcasting — both his father, Peter Storer Sr. and grandfather, George B. Storer, were major players in the industry. After attending Harvard College, Storer began his career in the network sales department of CBS. In 1986, he founded his broadcast software firm, StorerTV, which was sold to SintecMedia in 2012 — at which time Storer joined SMPTE Fellow Chris Lennon to launch MediAnswers. During the 25 years that he ran StorerTV, Storer worked with hundreds of broadcast and cable clients, including CBS, ABC/Disney, Comcast, Univision, Corus Entertainment, and TV Global. With Lennon, he helped to create the Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF) and continues as its primary document editor. He has also been active in industry organizations such as SMPTE, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Storer is the chairman of the George B. Storer Foundation and a board member and IT chair of the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association.
Peter Weitzel
Peter Weitzel joined the BBC Studio Capital Projects Department in 1978, serving in the projects function for most of his career and, in that role, mentoring more than 250 trainees. Weitzel installed the first GVG 300 PAL switcher and a complex multistage, software-controlled vision system for BBC Sport. In 1989, he managed the team that completely replaced the BBC's television core infrastructure with his common architecture design. He led the EBU team that standardized Teletext and defined the first EPG and DVB subtitles within ETSI, and he also led European work on audio and video description that specified an object audio signal system for digital television. By 2000, Weitzel had become a recognized expert for various commercial broadcast projects worldwide. In 2003, he introduced audio and video over IP over standard IT wide area network (WAN) to the BBC, and in 2008, he served as the project director for the first international transmission of NHK Super Hi-Vision in cooperation with the BBC. In 2012, Weitzel became the secretary/treasurer of the newly reformed SMPTE U.K. Section and supported it to become the third largest SMPTE Section.
Leigh Alvin Myles Whitcomb, Architect at Imagine Communications
Leigh Whitcomb joined Imagine Communications in 1991. He participates in the SMPTE Standards Community, as well as the Video Services Forum (VSF), and the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) committees, including active involvement on the SMPTE ST 2110 committee for Professional Media Over Managed IP, the SMPTE ST 2022 family of standards, and SMPTE ST 2059 Genlock Over IP. Whitcomb is the chair of the SMPTE Toronto Section. His other professional affiliations include IEEE and Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). Whitcomb holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo and a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto. He is the co-inventor of several patented technologies in the area of timing and synchronization.
A list of awards are awarded to society memebers. Honorary Membership is the Society's highest accolade. It recognizes individuals who have performed distinguished service in the advancement of engineering in motion pictures, television, or in the allied arts and sciences. Honorary Members who have passed away are named to the SMPTE Honor Roll, which also posthumously recognizes individuals who were not awarded Honorary Membership during their lifetimes but whose contributions would have been sufficient to warrant such an honor.
This year Renville "Ren" H. McMann Jr. (1927 – 2015) will be inducted into the Honor Roll in recognition of his award-winning leadership in the development of television and imaging technology. McMann held more than 36 patents for inventions that include the electronic video recorder, the electronic image enhancer, the color camera system, and the magnetic scan conversion techniques used by NASA to bring color television images from the moon to viewers around the world. He was the principal inventor for and a major participant in projects such as the development of the CBS Minicam Mark VI, the first handheld color TV camera. A tireless and curious engineer, McMann made many contributions to the advancement of color television signal processing and image gathering technology. Along with those contributions, his pioneering work in the field of high-definition television systems has garnered worldwide recognition.
The Progress Medal is the most prestigious SMPTE award, and it recognizes outstanding technical contributions to the progress of engineering phases of the motion picture, television, or motion-imaging industries.
SMPTE is presenting the 2017 Progress Medal to Paul E. Debevec in recognition of his achievements and ongoing work in pioneering techniques for illuminating computer-generated objects based on measurement of real-world illumination and their effective commercial application in numerous Hollywood films. Techniques from his research have been used to dramatic effect in films such as the "The Matrix" sequels, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "District 9," "Avatar," "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," and "Life of Pi." Debevec is also a pioneer in high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging and co-author of the 2005 book "High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display, and Image-Based Lighting," now in its second edition.
The Camera Origination and Imaging Medal recognizes significant technical achievements related to inventions or advances in imaging technology, including sensors, imaging processing electronics, and the overall embodiment and application of image capture devices. David S. Corley will receive the award for his five decades of continuous innovation in measurement and calibration tools for image acquisition, display, and color correction.
The David Sarnoff Medal recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques or equipment that have improved the engineering phases of television technology, including large-venue presentations. The award will be presented to Phillip Bennett in recognition of his significant contributions to the broadcast industry with his work in video effects, still stores, and digital standards conversion during the dawning of the digital video era. Over the years, Bennett has developed many groundbreaking products for broadcasters, including the very successful Ampex Digital Optics (ADO) digital video effects system and one of the very early digital disk recorders.
The Digital Processing Medal recognizes significant technical achievements related to the development of digital processing of content for cinema, television, games, or other related media. Michael A. Isnardi will receive the award for his contributions to the art of digital video delivery systems, including video encoding, re-encoding, and quality evaluation. Isnardi's body of work includes one of the first advanced television systems proposals, encoder, compressed-domain watermarking the first real-time Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), Emmy® Award-winning MPEG Compliance Bitstreams, compressed-domain bit rate reduction, salience-based compression, and JND evaluation of JPEG 2000 for digital cinema applications. His current work includes sub-Nyquist compressed sensing and skin-tone analysis algorithms.
The James A. Lindner Archival Technology Medal, sponsored by James A. Linder, recognizes significant technical advancements or contributions related to the invention or development of technology, techniques, workflows, or infrastructure for the long-term storage, archive, or preservation of media content essence. The 2017 award will be presented to James M. Reilly for his more than three decades of contributions to image preservation and sustainable preservation practices. In 1985, Reilly founded the Image Permanence Institute, a non-profit, university-based laboratory devoted to preservation research — the world's largest independent laboratory with this specific scope. As its founder and director, Reilly studied the mechanisms of film deterioration and developed technology, techniques, and preservation strategies to lengthen its life in storage.
The Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal, sponsored by Warner Bros., recognizes outstanding contributions in the design and development of new and improved methods and/or apparatus for motion picture sound, at any step in the process. The award will be presented to Mark Robert Gander in recognition of his contributions to the design and development of cinema loudspeaker systems. Gander has brought a comprehensive perspective to these efforts and has been responsible for every aspect of bringing a new loudspeaker design to market, from transducer engineering through logistics of manufacture and distribution to the signature marketing of the JBL Professional cinema product line. In his four decades devoted to the highest fidelity cinema sound reproduction, Gander has influenced cinema loudspeaker design industrywide.
The Technicolor — Herbert T. Kalmus Medal, sponsored by Technicolor, Inc., recognizes outstanding contributions that reflect a commitment to the highest standards of quality and innovation in motion picture postproduction and distribution services. The award will be presented to Joseph Goldstone for his innovations in the design and implementation of hardware and software to perform the accurate analysis and characterization of photochemical film processes, including film printing, which have been used in color management systems by the motion picture industry. Goldstone's early work involved the creation and refinement of film scanning and recording processes used for visual effects (VFX) creation at Digital Domain and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He was a pioneer in incorporating color science theory into digital production and postproduction workflows, and he is currently working on digital image processing for the ALEXA camera systems at ARRI. Goldstone is a key contributor to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) and serves on several SMPTE Technology Committees (TCs): TC-10E DG Dynamic Metadata for Color Transforms of HDR and WCG Images, TC-32NF-40 DG HDR and WCG Signaling on Streaming Interfaces, and TC-31FS DG Constrained DPX for HDR.
The Workflow Systems Medal, sponsored by Leon Silverman, recognizes outstanding contributions related to the development and integration of workflows, such as integrated processes, end-to-end systems or industry ecosystem innovations that enhance creativity, collaboration, and efficiency, or novel approaches to the production, postproduction, or distribution process. The award will be presented to Randy Ubillos in recognition of his role in establishing the foundation of accessible and affordable digital nonlinear editing software that fundamentally shaped the industry landscape and changed the way visual stories are created and told. Ubillos' revolutionary work with creating and designing lower-cost editing software such as Final Cut Pro® and Adobe® Premiere® shifted the film and television industry toward a more inclusive future, giving storytellers of diverse backgrounds and experience levels the ability to tell their stories and rise as filmmakers, technicians, engineers, and key players in every facet of media and entertainment. His work significantly enhanced and transformed the world of postproduction, popularizing and commoditizing file-based workflows while removing significant barriers to the creative editing process for millions of users worldwide.
Each year, one SMPTE Journal Award is presented to the author of the most outstanding paper originally published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal during the preceding calendar year. The SMPTE Journal Award will be presented to Sean T. McCarthy for the article "How Independent Are HDR, WCG, and HFR in Human Visual Perception and the Creative Process?" published in the May/June 2016 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
Two Journal Certificates of Merit will be presented to:
Katy C. Noland for the article "High Frame Rate Television: Sampling Theory, the Human Visual System, and Why the Nyquist–Shannon Theorem Does Not Apply," published in the April 2016 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
David Long and Mark D. Fairchild for the article "Observer Metamerism Models and Multiprimary Display Systems," published in the April 2016 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
The Student Paper Award recognizes the outstanding paper prepared and submitted by a Student Member. The paper receiving the Student Paper Award will be published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
The 2017 award will be presented to Elizabeth DoVale, a recent graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, for her paper "High Frame Rate Psychophysics: Experimentation to Determine a JND for Frame Rate."
Jonathan Bouchard, a student at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada, will receive an honorable mention for his paper "Quality Control of Stereoscopic 3-D Compositing Using Half-Occlusion Geometry."
The Presidential Proclamation recognizes individuals of established and outstanding status and reputation in the motion picture, television, and motion-imaging industries worldwide. Mark Schubin will receive the award in recognition of his five decades of contributions to the television technology industry. An internationally recognized expert with an insatiable intellectual curiosity, Schubin has worked in every aspect of television production, including design, manufacturing, lighting, sound, camera, editing, distribution, as well as talent, and his projects have spanned every continent of the globe. Today, he supports the broadcasting of Metropolitan Opera (The Met) productions to cinemas and televisions around the world. Schubin is an active SMPTE Life Fellow and a sought-after resource in educating the industry on the history and current state of motion-imaging technology.
The Excellence in Standards Award recognizes individuals or companies that have been actively involved in advancing the Society's standards activities and processes. Johann Safar will receive this award in recognition of his continuous participation in SMPTE's standards work for more than 30 years. Safar has contributed to the development of countless standards related to the compression and formatting of multimedia content for storage on analog and digital media, as well as the development of Time Code, ancillary data formatting and mapping. He is a careful reviewer of SMPTE standards, with a focus on ensuring harmonization and compatibility of interrelated standards across multiple technology committees. Safar's dedicated performance in the SMPTE Standards Community has resulted in a high quality of professional standards documents.
The Society Citation recognizes individuals or companies that have actively been involved in specific Society engineering or editorial functions. Elizabeth "Betty" Migliore will receive this award in recognition of her 45 years of service with SMPTE and her contributions to the standards program. A dedicated and loyal staff member, Migliore joined SMPTE in November of 1972 as secretary to the staff director of engineering. Over the years, she has been steadfast in supporting SMPTE's standards work as engineering assistant and standards publisher, roles in which she actively supported document preparation for the SMPTE Technology Committees. In these roles, Migliore participated in advancing SMPTE's standards publishing process from typewriter to CD-ROM to PDF and the digital library.
The Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society, which recognizes individuals for dedicated service for the betterment of the Society over a sustained period, will be conferred upon four SMPTE Members:
Merrick Ackermans, for his contributions to and leadership of the Atlanta Section and the Southern Region. A long-time contributor to the Atlanta Section and four-term governor of the Southern Region, Ackermans has devoted much time and effort to producing quality Section events. His extensive involvement has included participation in everything from proposing engaging topics, securing speakers, and organizing facility and audio-visual logistics to contributing his knowledge as a speaker and facilitator.
Herbert Jay Dunmore, for his contributions as Member and manager of the Washington DC SMPTE Section and as the Student Chapter advisor of the Loyola University Maryland Chapter since its founding in 2012. Dunmore has continually promoted learning between the Student Chapter and the Section through hosting an annual meeting and seminars, exposing future professionals to the creative, business, and technical realms of television production.
John Walsh, for his dedication and service to the SMPTE Australia Section over the past decade. Walsh has served on the board of the SMPTE Australia Section since 2005, taking on the additional roles of membership chair and Section meeting lead. He has also been an active member of the organizing committee for the biennial SMPTE Australia Section conferences. Walsh is a dedicated Section member, always working behind the scenes to ensure the success of the Australia Section meetings.
David Wheeler, for his many contributions to the Australia Section, especially the SMPTE Australia Conferences. Wheeler was a member of the Conference Papers Committee for the SMPTE 2013 Australia Conference and served as chair of that committee for the 2015 event with 16 sessions and 52 presentations spanning four days.
The Louis F. Wolf Jr. Memorial Scholarship is designed to assist students in furthering their undergraduate or graduate studies in motion pictures and television, with an emphasis on technology. The 2017 scholarship will be awarded to three SMPTE Student Members:
Trevor Canham, Rochester Institute of Technology
Emily Faw, Rochester Institute of Technology
Catherine Marie Meininger, Rochester Institute of Technology