Report from Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), Video Services Forum (VSF) and Joint Taskforce on Networked Media (JT-NM)

Thomas Edwards is the vice president of Engineering & Development at Walt Disney Television, where he works on advanced technology development, such as ultrahigh-definition (UHD), over-the-top (OTT), and live IP production systems. Previously, he managed the engineering planning of the PBS video interconnection and streaming media for the ISP DIGEX. He holds an MS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, and he is a board member of the AMWA, chairs the QoE/Measurement Working Group of the Streaming Video Alliance, chairs SMPTE 32NF-60 WG on Video over IP, is a SMPTE Fellow, and was awarded the SMPTE Workflow Systems Medal.

Felix Poulin is with the national public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, where he is the director of the Media over IP Architecture and Lab. This Lab is currently evaluating IP-based equipment for the new headquarters to be on air in 2020. Before this mandate, he was a lead expert on live IP at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), involved with the JT-NM, organizing training and events, coordinating expert groups and the multi-award winning VRT Sandbox LiveIP project. He received a Diploma degree in electrical engineering at Montreal’s Polytechnique, Montreal, QC, Canada, with his final thesis completed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. He is an active contributor to the SMPTE, EBU, and AMWA.

Neil Dunstan is the director, member, and marketing of the AMWA, managing recruitment and retention of members—and communicating the business value of AMWA projects to a broad audience. He worked with the design of radio and television studios for the BBC and then commercially for Sony Systems Division in Europe; later managing Sony’s long-term strategic relationship with major U.K. broadcasters such as the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), Sky, and Channel Four. Since then, he has been the principal of Dunstan Associates.

Peter Brightwell is a lead engineer at BBC. He leads research and specification work for BBC’s transition to IP. He has an extensive background in broadcast and technology, in particular, video compression, file-based acquisition, networked delivery, and virtual graphics. He is a frequent contributor to industry work on interoperability and was a co-author of the JT-NM Networked Media Reference Architecture. He is the chair of the AMWA Networked Media Incubator and EBU Automation and Provisioning project.

Gareth Sylvester-Bradley is a principal engineer in Sony’s European Professional Engineering Research Lab, and currently serving as the vendor co-chair of the AMWA NMOS Steering Board. He believes that the agile specification process and close industry collaboration means NMOS is continuously, demonstrably “ready now.” He has contributed to all of the AMWA NMOS specifications and the AMWA NMOS Testing Tool and is behind Sony’s open-source software implementation at github.com/sony/nmos-cpp, utilized for the JT-NM Tested program and by a wide range of vendors. His prior activities have focused on delivering APIs and software toolkits, within Sony and with industry partners, for metadata-enabled file-based workflows and image processing across D-Cinema, Medical Imaging, and Pro-AV.

Wes Simpson has always been interested in delivering media signals over networks. After starting his career in mobile telephony and then moving into fiber optics, he has focused on high-performance video transport for the past 25 years. He has developed and delivered well-received training seminars covering IP video and media networking technology for a wide range of private clients and organizations such as the VSF, the IEEE BTS, and SMPTE. He is a contributing editor for TV Technology and frequently speaks at events including VidTrans, SMPTE, NAB, and IBC. He has written two books which have both been released as second editions: “IPTV and Internet Video” and “Video Over IP. ” He was a founder of the VSF and was made an Honorary Member. He is currently the Secretary/Treasurer of the Connecticut Subsection of SMPTE and serves on the SMPTE 32nd subcommittee that created SMPTE ST 2110 as well as on the Board of Editors for SMPTE’s Motion Imaging Journal. He is also a voting member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards Committee.

Rick Ackermans is the director of RF Transmissions Engineering for CBS Television; he is the Co-chair of the Video Services Forum RIST Activity Group and a Chair of the SMPT Studio Video over IP Drafting Group. Previously, he was the founder and Principal Engineer of MVA Broadcast Consulting, providing media transport design and consulting services to television, cable, streaming, and other media providers. He is a member of the board of the Video Services Forum. He is also a member of the SMPTE Board of Governors and is a SMPTE Fellow.

Andy Rayner is a chief technologist at Nevion. In addition to providing company-wide technical strategy and direction, he heads up the Nevion, U.K. technology center. He is a regular speaker at key global broadcast technology events and conferences. He is on the VSF board of directors and is part of the AIMS TWG. He is an active participant in many standards forums and currently the U.K. SMPTE manager. Prior to joining Nevion in 2010, he was the head of broadcast technology at BT. In this role, he was responsible for the design of the BT Global IP Media Network, the world’s first traffic-engineered MPLS media network. He also oversaw and architected the development of key video interfacing, monitoring, and protection technology. He has filed many patents—both with BT and Nevion. During his time with BT, he was awarded the prestigious Martlesham Gold Medal for technical innovation. With Nevion, he received a technical Emmy for JPEG 2000 standardization work.

Bob Ruhl is the president of Ruhl & Associates, LLC; he is the JT-NM secretary and operations manager of the VSF. Previously, he was with Verizon Communications in the Philadelphia area, where he was responsible for planning systems upgrades throughout the East Coast as well as a founding member of the VSF representing Verizon. After retiring from Verizon in 2002, he formed Ruhl & Associates, L.L.C.

Ievgen Kostiukevych gathered nearly a decade of experience with AoIP integration and solution architecture before joining the EBU Technology and Innovation team as an expert on Media over IP, with an emphasis on Audio over IP and the AES67/SMPTE ST 2110-30 interoperability challenges. He is a member of SMPTE and AES.