SMPTE Announces 2012 Honors and Awards Recipients

Celebrating industry-changing achievements in acquisition, audio, digital cinema and television, file-based workflows, image archival, special effects, standards development, and more, the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE), the worldwide leader in motion-imaging standards and education for the media, entertainment, communications, and technology industries, announced the 2012 winners of its annual honors and awards which will be presented during the Society’s Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition in October.

“Whether it’s broadcast, cinema, or IT, the work of those being honored at SMPTE 2012 is foundational to the future success of motion-imaging professionals,” said SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange. “We are thrilled to celebrate the remarkable individuals receiving this year’s awards and their achievements.”

SMPTE 2012 will take place 23 – 25 October in Hollywood. A special pre-conference symposium – High Frame Rates for Digital Cinema – will take place on 22 October. Conference registration and program information are available at www.smpte2012.org.

Achievements In Acquisition, Audio, Digital Cinema, Special Effects To Be Honored
SMPTE will present its Camera Origination/Imaging Medal to Bruce Bayer of National Teleconsultants and the inventor of the color filter array that bears his name. The Bayer Filter is incorporated into nearly every digital camera and camera phone on the market today.

In the area of audio, SMPTE will present its Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal to Douglas Greenfield of Dolby Laboratories. Greenfield has had a hand in nearly all cinema sound innovations, including the application of noise reduction to Stereo Variable Area recordings, analog optical mastering and distribution, and 5.1 channel Dolby Digital Optical mastering and printing.

The Society will present its Technicolor/Herbert T. Kalmus Gold Medal to Dr. Thomas O. Maier, a former research fellow at Kodak who also helped to develop the SMPTE standards for digital cinema, for his creation of mathematical models that led to an array of Kodak products and services – and for his contributions to the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES). Developed under the auspices of the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, ACES is an architecture and set of supporting tools for digital motion picture production, mastering, and archiving designed to eliminate the ambiguities of today’s file formats.

SMPTE will bestow its Digital Processing Medal to the inventor Gary Demos for his pioneering work in digital processing, including computer-generated digital special effects, high-speed film scanning and recording, and high-quality image compression and processing.

Awards Celebrate Work In Digital Television, File-Based Workflows, Image Archival
SMPTE will present its David Sarnoff Medal to James M. DeFilippis of the FOX Television Group for his engineering excellence in the broadcast television industry and contributions to digital television, including the development of the FOX Network MPEG-2 splicing distribution system – as well as his ongoing support of SMPTE and other technology standards-development organizations.

The Society will bestow its Workflow Systems Medal to Brad Gilmer, Executive Director of the Advanced Media Workflow Association and an industry consultant, writer, and speaker on file-based workflows. Among other achievements, Gilmer’s early work in file-based workflows at Turner Entertainment became a model for many broadcasters to follow.

SMPTE will present its Archival Technology Medal to the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Video Conservation in recognition of that group’s significant contributions to the advancement of long-term content storage, archival, and preservation.

Excellence In Standards & Education To Be Celebrated
Celebrating its role as the worldwide leader in motion-imaging standards and education, SMPTE will present its Excellence in Standards Award to Bob Edge. An industry consultant and longtime participant in multiple standards activities, Edge has led development efforts for file formats and file-based workflow standards.

SMPTE will present its Kodak Educational Award to William McDonald, Chair of the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. Society officials cited McDonald’s dedication to student filmmakers and to ensuring that they have affordable access to the best digital production and postproduction resources available.

The Society will present its Progress Medal Award to David Wood of the European Broadcasting Union for his career as a scientific and innovative leader and educator in the broadcasting industry.

SMPTE will also celebrate contributions to its Motion Imaging Journal as well as those members who have given outstanding service to the Society; add to its Honor Roll of the late Charles E. Anderson, who made key contributions to the invention of the first practical, broadcast-grade videotape recorder; present the Louis F. Wolf Jr. Memorial Scholarship; and welcome a new class of Society Fellows.

Premier Annual Event Draws Broadcast, Cinema, IT Thought Leaders
As the premier annual event for motion-imaging industry, the annual SMPTE conference enables technical and high-level business professionals to hear from and engage with academic, engineering, executive, and standards thought leaders across the broadcast, cinema, and IT industries.

SMPTE 2012 lives up to this standard, with scheduled presentations from the BBC, Belden, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories, Ericsson, FUJIFILM, Harmonic, Harris, HBO, IBM, Microsoft, NHK, NVIDIA, Motorola Mobility, Qualcomm, Snell, Skywalker Sound, Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Technicolor, and Verizon. Also participating will be leading vision-science researchers from around the world – as well as representatives from the European Broadcasting Union and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.