On June 24, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences celebrated
the 1998 Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards at the Beverly Hills
Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The award recipients were
honored among their engineering and creative peers during an
elegant luncheon held in the hotel's opulent ballroom.
The Emmy Engineering Award is given to an individual, company, or organization for developments that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that they materially affect the transmission, recording, or reception of television.
The Emmy Plaque is awarded for achievements that exhibit a high level of engineering and are important to the progress of the industry. The Plaque is given in recognition of engineering achievements that are on a different level of technology and industry importance.
|
|
Texas Instruments' Digital Micromirror Device
Awarded to Brian Critchley of Digital Projection International and Larry J. Hornbeck of Texas Instruments for the creation of the Power Displays projector, an innovative illumination, optical/signal processing system that produces brilliant large-screen images.
Digital Projection's Power Displays produce images with more than one billion colors, creating smooth, film-like large-screen images.
At the heart of the Power Display is the Digital Micromirror Device from Texas Instruments, invented by Dr. Larry Hornbeck. Comprising a rectangular array of microscopic hinged mirrors, the DMD allows light to be modulated more accurately than is possible using any alternate technology.
Awarded to Nat, Ira and Steven Tiffen of Tiffen Manufacturing Corporation for the company's overall contribution to the design and manufacture of state-of-the-art camera lens filters.
The proprietary Tiffen laminating process, fusing two layers of clear glass together through the use of a micro-thin, inorganic, index-matched bonding layer has, to this day, provided the basis for an unprecedented level of color, contrast, resolution and flare control through optical manipulation. These qualities, in the hands of talented directors and cinematographers, have contributed greatly to enhancing the level of video imaging throughout the industry.
Eastman Kodak's Spirit DataCine
Awarded to Michael Broesamle, Uwe Braehler, Volker Massmann and Wolfgang Steinebach of Philips Digital Video Systems and Arthur J. Cosgrove, Andrew F. Kurtz, Roger T. Lees and Leslie G. Moore of Eastman Kodak for the design and manufacture of the industry-standard high-definition digital telecine.
The Spirit DataCine Film Scanner is a joint development between Philips Digital Video Systems and Eastman Kodak. The combination of the Advanced Imaging Head from Eastman, and the precision transport mechanisms and high-speed digital signal processing developed by Philips, has resulted in a new benchmark for high-quality film transfers in both standard-definition and high-definition video standards and high-speed data scanning.
|
|
- and -
Tektronix Lightworks' "Heavyworks" Multistream Editing Systems
Awarded to Patrick O'Connor, Thomas A. Ohanian, Joseph Rice, Victor Young, Nancy Kronenberg, Ken Goekjian, Joel Swan and Eric Peters of Avid Technology, Inc. and Kenneth Gordon, Hugh Steers, John Child, Anita Sinclair, Trevor Morecraft, Neil Roberts and Robert Fearnside of Tektronix for the development of editing systems that allow real-time, multi-stream digital playback for greater ease and efficiency.
Avid's Real-Time Multicamera System has successfully supplanted all analog alternatives. Through the use of real-time digital multi-stream playback, editors can work more efficiently. Through the use of multiple tracks of real-time digital audio, high-quality sound tracks are routinely laid out, and in some cases, delivered as the final audio component of a show. A wide range of digital video effects, transitions and compositing functions are also available.
Tektronix, Inc.'s Lightworks' Pentium-based "Heavyworks" Multistream Editing System was the first system to support both multi-camera material editing in real time and to produce both picture and sound roughcuts on the fly. Key features include a rendered effects package with bluescreen capability, cropping, resizing and graphics import/export, and real-time effects comprising 20 different wipe patterns, ramped dissolves and superimpositions.
|
|
Awarded to Yves Faroudja for the development of key patents in the arena of NTSC processing, encoding, decoding, enhancement, and noise reduction. Mr. Faroudja was at the forefront in developing the Sony U-matic, S-VHS, and Hi-8 recorders.
Faroudja is the founder and chief technical officer of Faroudja Laboratories, Inc. of Sunnyvale, California. After earning an MSEE degree from the Ecloe Superieure d'Electricite, Paris, he worked at ITT Research Laboratories in France and at NATO in Italy as a research engineer until 1965, when he moved to the United States.
Faroudja Laboratories has been instrumental in improving video enhancement, noise reduction and NTSC encoding/decoding technologies, as well as pioneering line-multiplying technology. Many of these processes have been licensed to manufacturers of 3/4", S-VHS, HQ-VHS, and 8mm video recorders.
Faroudja holds more that 55 U.S. and foreign patents, has been honored with the Monitor Award for Excellence in Engineering, and received the SMPTE David Sarnoff Gold Medal Award in 1987. Additionally, he received an Emmy in 1991 for the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York for his work on NTSC advancement.
