Introduction to the SMPTE Technology Committee Reports

Paul Gardiner is standards manager at Sony Broadcast & Professional Research Labs, at Sony Europe Ltd., based in Basingstoke, U.K. He studied electronic engineering at the University of Southampton before joining the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) in 1974. His career has included a variety of roles related to the introduction of the UHF color television networks in the U.K. He has been involved in television technical regulation, and in R&D project management with responsibility for several international collaborative research projects. Gardiner has been an active SMPTE member since joining Sony in 2007. He is also a regular participant in the work of ITU R and is chair of the AMWA-EBU FIMS Technical Board.

John Hudson is director of broadcast technology at Semtech Corp. in Burlington Canada. He began his career in the broadcast industry in 1984 when he joined the Design and Development group of Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe as a technician engineer. During his career, he has worked as a design engineer, project leader, system architect, program manager, product-definition engineer, and technology strategist. — Hudson is active in television standards work. He is co-chair of TC10E and chairs the 32NF20 Electrical Interfaces Working Group in SMPTE. He also chairs the Technical Committee of the HDcctv Alliance, which is responsible for the development of standards for the HDcctv Industry.

Dave Schnuelle represents Dolby Laboratories as senior director, image technology, and provides guidance in Dolby's efforts in the television, cinema, and consumer imaging areas. He began his career as an engineer in television outside broadcasts while attending Purdue University. Schnuelle later held positions as chief engineer at various post-production facilities such as Editel and Modern VideoFilm in Los Angeles. Schnuelle worked with Lucasfilm's THX Division, beginning in 1991, where he was responsible for founding the THX Digital Mastering Program for quality-assurance of home video masters and duplicated software. As director of technology for THX, he directed research efforts into new technology for cinemas. During that period, he directly supervised the international digital cinema exhibition of the new Star Wars movies—Episode 1 1999 and Episode 2 2002. — Schnuelle holds four patents on imaging and audio technology and has been deeply involved with film and television standards activities for 30 years. Schnuelle is a SMPTE Fellow and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

John Hurst is co-founder and chief technology officer at CineCert, LLC, an internationally recognized developer of digital cinema technology, where he is currently engaged in the development of the D-Cinema Comprehensive Test Plan for Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI). Hurst has been an active participant in the SMPTE Digital Cinema technology committee and has served as editor of several of the standards published by that committee. He has more than 25 years of experience in sound recording and post-production, including the design and construction of well-known recording studios and post-production sound facilities in the Los Angeles area. He has technical responsibilities for many location recordings and live-to-air broadcasts. Hurst is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and is an active radio amateur and community volunteer.

Ann Marie Rohaly is director of accessibility policy and standards for Microsoft's Corporate Accessibility Group. Before joining Microsoft in 2003, she spent five years at Tektronix, Inc., in several senior positions, including strategic technology manager for the Video Product Line. Rohaly has been an active participant in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), leading the standardization of Tektronix's Emmy award-winning PQA300 picture-quality measurement technology, and in many other international standards-setting organizations and industry consortia. She played a lead role in the standardization of VC-1 as SMPTE ST 421 and more recently, in the standardization of SMPTE Timed Text (ST 2052). In 2010, she was appointed to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee, which issued a report on closed captioning for Internet-delivered video. Rohaly is a SMPTE Fellow and served on the Board of Governors 2009-2013.

Brian Vessa is a dedicated audio professional with more than 35 years of experience in the industry. After attending UCLA Engineering School he became a recording engineer, producing albums and recording orchestras. His passion was hotrodding studio gear and discovering novel recording techniques. Vessa transitioned into film post as a music editor and sound editor, became a re-recording mixer at Cannon Films and MGM, then handled audio restoration at NT Audio. He was hired by Sony Pictures in 1998, where he is currently executive director of digital audio mastering and representative to Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI). — Vessa is a member of the Academy Sound Branch, SMPTE and the Audio Engineering Society (AES). He chairs the TC-25CSS committee, as well as D-Cinema and IMF sub-committees. He has written many audio specifications, including a white paper on near-field mixing for home theater that has been widely adopted. Vessa enjoys recording jazz, rock and mixing live sound.

Phil Tudor is a principal engineer at BBC Research & Development, London, U.K. He studied electrical and information sciences at Cambridge University. Tudor's technical background includes software engineering, video compression algorithm development, MPEG standardization, metadata interoperability and the development of AAF and MXF standard file formats for use in tapeless production. Tudor is responsible for R&D projects in the areas of production tools, formats, workflow, media management and wide area production. He is a board member of the Advanced Media Workflow Association. Tudor is a SMPTE fellow, a Chartered Engineer and a member of the IET.

Paul Treleaven obtained a First Class Honours degree in electrical engineering from Imperial College, London in 1972. He started his career in broadcast engineering with BBC Designs Department. His work included design of the interpolation system for the BBC's ‘ACE’ four-field standards converter. In 1979, Treleaven co-founded Avitel, a company designing and manufacturing video, audio and timecode distribution and processing equipment. He continued with Avitel as technical director until 2001. — Treleaven is a member of the International Association of Broadcasting Manufacturers' (IABMs) Technical Task Group, representing the IABM at SMPTE and AES standards meetings and ABU technology committee meetings. He is also a member of the U.K.'s National Standards Body for IEC TC100. Treleaven has served as SMPTE International Region Governor and is a SMPTE Fellow.

Michael A. Dolan is founder and president of Television Broadcast Technology, providing specialized professional encoders, test tools, and technical consulting in the field of digital television. He holds a BSEE degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and has worked for and founded various leadingedge computer graphics and realtime systems companies, including early foundational work in W3C technology and analog data broadcasting. Dolan has been involved in digital television engineering for the past eight years, including data broadcast system architecture and digital receiver design and compliance. He also currently chairs the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Data Broadcasting Specialist Group (TSG/ S13) and is active in the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE). A SMPTE Fellow, Dolan authors the SMPTE Journal Almanac column and holds several patents in computer Web technology.

Pierre-Anthony Lemieux is a Partner at Sandflow Consulting, where he works with both Hollywood and Silicon Valley clients on worldwide standards, proof-of-concept development, and product architecture. His expertise covers the entertainment technology ecosystem, from content authoring to playback, including audio and video and timed text, file formats, and content protection. His recent engagements include representing clients at industry forums (including SMPTE and W3C,) developing standards for file-based post-production workflows, and implementing audio processing algorithms. Lemieux is a SMPTE Fellow and currently serves as document editor on multiple SMPTE projects, in addition to chairing TC-31FS. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and a B.Sc. degree from McGill University.

Alan Lambshead retired in 2013 from a career with Evertz Microsystems Ltd. in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, which spanned more than 33 years. In his most recent role as vice president, engineering, his responsibilities included the general oversight of R&D and product development, focusing on time code and post-production products. During most of his 33 years at Evertz, Lambshead has served actively on SMPTE technology committees and is the author of several SMPTE recommended practices. He is a SMPTE Fellow and member of the Toronto Section. Lambshead is a widely recognized expert in the field of HDTV time code and sync issues, HDTV production, HDTV metadata and has presented papers at local Sections and national SMPTE conferences. He graduated from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, with a B. Eng in electrical engineering in 1972 and became licensed as a Professional Engineer (P. Eng.) in Ontario in 1988. Lambshead became a SMPTE Fellow in 2009.

John F. Snow represents Xilinx, Inc., where he is a senior staff design engineer in the Digital Video Processing group focused on developing field programmable gate array (FPGA) cores that implement SMPTE interface standards. Prior to joining Xilinx in 2001, he was director of engineering at Evans & Sutherland where he was involved in realtime computer graphics for flight simulation for 20 years. — Snow is active in SMPTE standards work. In addition to chairing the TC-32NF, he co-chairs the 33TS.20 Working Group on Synchronization. He is also a senior member of the IEEE.

John Fletcher is a lead technologist at BBC Research & Development, London, U.K. He studied natural and electrical sciences at Cambridge University before joining the BBC in 1986. He has worked in a variety of fields including acoustics, video coding and subtitling. His main interest in recent years has been the application of information technology to the TV production process, with projects such as the Ingex tapeless recording system. Fletcher is a Chartered Engineer and member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Bob Edge has worked as an engineer, architect, project leader, and program manager on several products and research projects. Some of his early projects include desktop computing products, peripherals, and high-performance graphics devices. He participated in research projects that used data networks to transport realtime audio/video streams. He also worked on Grass Valley products. — Edge has been active in television standards work for more than 15 years, including participation in SMPTE, some European Broadcasters Union projects, Video Services Forum, Advanced Media Workflow Association and other organizations. He has served as SMPTE Engineering Director and as a technology committee chair and is a Life Fellow in the Society. Edge has contributed to the development of more than a dozen SMPTE standards and RDDs. — Edge is the author of many technical papers describing the application of IT and data networking for television production. He has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Oregon State University. — In 2009, Grass Valley received a Technical Emmy for GXF as the first professional audio/video file format. Edge was one of the contributors to the development and standardization of GXF and MXF. In 2012, Edge received the Excellence in Standards award from SMPTE. — In 2011, Edge retired from Grass Valley and he is now consulting on standards projects representing vendors and end-users. This work includes writing standards, managing projects, and providing technical expertise to engineers and managers.

John Footen is an acknowledged industry expert in such areas as business process management, service-oriented architecture, and the Cloud, all of which have a major impact on today's broadcast television and professional media systems. As head of Cognizant's broadcast consulting practice, Footen is responsible for business and technology consulting throughout the broadcast industry. Footen is a sought-after speaker and expert writer on software architecture and workflow issues. He is an active founding member of the Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) joint taskforce of the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and European Broadcasting Union (EBU). He has been responsible for managing many large and complex media solutions projects for many types of media enterprises and has extensive international experience; having lived and worked in North America, Asia, and EMEA. Footen holds degrees in computer science and film and television from New York University. He is also the co-author of “The Service-Oriented Media Enterprise: SOA, BPM, and Web Services in Professional Media Systems,” published by Focal Press.

Chris Simons spent the early part of his career working for U.K. terrestrial and satellite broadcasters then joined Drake Automation Ltd. in 1996. As head of customer support, he established a global support infrastructure delivering major automation projects including BSkyB, DirecTV, Network Ten, SkyPerfecTV, Dish Network, etc. Following the acquisition of Encoda Systems by Harris in 2005 Simons managed the Automation Services organization covering both ADC and D-Series globally. — After a working at Miranda Technologies in 2006, Simons returned to Harris and heads the Automation and Asset Management Product Group, responsible for the ADC, D-Series and Invenio product suite.

Howard Lukk is vice president, production systems at The Walt Disney Studios, where he is responsible for helping to incorporate new technologies into the workflow of the studio. Prior to that, he was director of technology for DCI where he was responsible for researching and documenting Digital Cinema Specifications. Before that he was chief engineer at IVC a post-production facility in Burbank, CA. He has also worked as a freelance engineer on HDTV productions such as Woodstock 25th Anniversary and Major League Baseball. Lukk has been an active member of SMPTE since 1995 and is also an associate member of the ASC.

Thomas Bause Mason is a director for advanced digital media technology in the Advanced Engineering department at NBCUniversal. As part of the NBCUniversal Advanced Technology Team, he helps to research and implement emerging technologies as well as standards for file-based workflows in production, post-production and distribution including traditional broadcast, cable, and the Web. His responsibilities also include UHDTV and Closed Captioning for the Web. He works with many different NBCUniversal operational teams to implement standards and technology on a corporate level. — In the past, Mason worked at Ascent Media where he ran the encoding as well as the DAM system ingest operations and helped business development to implementing new media workflows. Before that he worked in Germany as a programmer for process visualization software and as a developer of database solutions. Additionally, he managed a quality control department for several private broadcast networks at a large broadcast service provider. Mason has a bachelor's degree in media technology and has been a SMPTE member since 2007. He is an associate member of AMWA representing NBCUniversal and a W3C member representing Comcast.