The Television Academy has announced the recipients of the 66th Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards, which will be honored on January 8, 2014, at the Bellagio Hotel, and held in tandem with the Consumers Electronics Show
-The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), a group founded in 1916 under the chairmanship of inventor Charles F. Jenkins, is this year's recipient of the Philo T. Farnsworth Award, which honors an agency, company or institution whose contributions impacted TV technology and engineering.
-Laurence J. Thorpe is this year's recipient of the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors a living individual whose on-going contributions have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering. Thorpe has served as the head of HDTV market development at Sony Electronics as well as senior fellow at Canon U.S.A. A graduate of the College of Technology in Dublin, he began his career with the BBC in London.
The Academy also announced this year’s five Engineering Emmy recipients:
-Philips Professional Broadcasting for the LDK6000, DPM CCD Multi-format HDTV Camera System. First demonstrated in 2000, it uses the company’s patented DPM (Dynamic Pixel Management) imager technology, enabling the camera to capture multiple video formats and frame rates without physically changing the image sensor. It became a popular choice for remote sports and entertainment television productions including the Olympics (2004) and Super Bowl (2005), as well as live entertainment shows such as the Academy Awards (2003-2006).
-Sony Professional Solutions of America for the Multi-format HDTV CCD Fiber Optic Camera System. First used in 2005 on the Fox TV show, American Idol, the product is touted for providing superior HDTV image quality in a progressive video format (720 progressive).
-High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). HDMI has evolved into a universally-implemented, standardized, digital-interconnection method that delivers high quality digital audio, video and auxiliary data to home entertainment devices while simplifying the consumer experience. Unlike older cables, an HDMI connection transmits uncompressed audio-video data in 100 percent digital form through a single cable, the Academy pointed out.
-Intel Corp. for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). Intel Corporation, in concert with HDMI, created and deployed a universally implemented protocol for the clear identification and transparent delivery of copyrighted high quality audio/video content in a manner that discourages unauthorized redistribution. Gaining broad adoption as an approved output protocol, it supports billions of device interfaces used by consumers worldwide.
-Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) for its Recommended Practice on Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television. Spurred by public pressure, impending legislation, and newly-refined techniques for quantifying apparent loudness, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) codified a Recommended Practice on Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television as RP A/85. This publication is now mandated by the FCC as an enforceable regulation in response the United States Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act of 2010, effective December 13, 2012.
