75th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards Announced

The Television Academy announced recipients of the 75th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards honoring an individual, company or organization for developments in broadcast technology. The award ceremony will be held on Wednesday, October 18, 2023.

The following is a list of awards and recipients being recognized:

Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award - Honors a living individual whose ongoing contributions have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering.

Recipient: Birney Dayton

The television technology pioneer and one of the founders of NVISION, Dayton helmed the business for 20 years serving as both CEO and CTO.  Established to build products to support and drive the development of high-definition television, NVISION has been lauded for their innovative products in digital audio, HDTV routing and other broadcast facility products. Prior to NVISION, Dayton was vice president of engineering for Grass Valley Group leading the development of digital products that streamlined the routing of digital signals through production and operations centers. An innovator in bringing fiber optics to the world of television, he built the first fiber-optic transmission system for over-the-air television, used for the opening ceremonies of the 1980 Olympics. In the late 1980s, Dayton chaired the systems analysis working party of the ACATS (Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service), which tested and selected the best-of-breed technologies to establish the digital television distribution standard that continues to operate throughout North America. In addition, he helped develop the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) analog and digital component video standards, was co-chair of the SMPTE high-definition electronic-production working group and was awarded the SMPTE Progress Medal for his numerous industry-changing digital audio products and technologies. Dayton has authored numerous industry papers and currently holds 15 patents.

Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award

Honors an agency, company, or institution whose contributions over time have significantly impacted television technology and engineering.

Recipient: National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)

NAB is the voice for the nation's radio and television broadcasters. As the premier trade association for broadcasters, NAB advances the interests of their members in federal government, industry, and public affairs; improves the quality and profitability of broadcasting; encourages content and technology innovation; and spotlights the important and unique ways stations serve their communities.

Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards

Presented to an individual, company or organization for developments in engineering, science and technology that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that they materially affect the production, recording, transmission, or reception of television and thereby have elevated the storytelling process.

Recipients: Chris Deighton, Richard Mead, Adrian Jeakins, Evangelos Apostolopoulos for the Brompton Technology Tessera SX40 LED video processor

Brompton Technology's Tessera SX40 LED (light-emitting diode) video processor has been a key enabler of the revolution in using LED screens for virtual production. To make LED screen-based virtual production even possible requires high-quality, artifact-free processing. The SX40 has become a significant ingredient in a winning recipe utilized in virtual production studios worldwide. Software upgrades have further improved performance and optimized virtual production workflows, ensuring the greatest possible flexibility for the creative team while delivering the gold standard for color accuracy and on-camera visual performance.

“The entire Brompton team is incredibly thrilled and humbled to receive such a prestigious award from our industry peers, and for the recognition of the vital role that LED processing plays for in-camera visual effects,” commented Richard Mead. “It is a demanding medium that aims to recreate reality within a studio, and that is exactly the kind of challenge that Brompton Technology has always sought to meet. Our mission is to deliver the best possible image quality, breadth of functionality, usability, and reliability in every product we build.”

Recipients: Steve Rosenbluth, Thomas E. Burgess, Konstantin Smola, Glen Winchester for the Concept Overdrive Motion System

Concept Overdrive is a valuable tool for virtual production and augmented reality and has become a professional standard for the control of machines and animatronics in television production worldwide. With an acclaimed user interface, the system implements a streaming motion network, real-time constraints, and maximally digital motion control, which make it ideal for interfacing with the real world in modern production environments.

Recipient: International Telecommunications Union – Radiocommunications – Study Group 6 for the Standardization of High Dynamic Range Television (HDR-TV)

Since its first publication in July 2016, Recommendation ITU-R BT.2100 "image-parameter values for high-dynamic range television for use in production and international program exchange," more simply known as HDR-TV, has impacted the entire television industry, from cameras, post-production (especially in color processing), delivery though traditional broadcasting OTT (over-the-top) streaming services, and both professional and consumer display/television products. BT.2100 provided the critically important international specifications that have enabled HDR to become widely practiced and enjoyed by consumers.

Recipients: Raymond Drewry and Jim Helman for the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR)

Created by the technical staff at MovieLabs, the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR) unifies the commercial film and television industry around one standardized content ID, one infrastructure for creating and sharing the ID, and one nested data model for describing the relationships between abstract titles, specific edits of each title and their packaging for distribution. EIDR has provided the mission-critical infrastructure that has enabled the explosion in digital distribution of film and television content to an increasing set of consumer devices over the last 10 years.

Recipient: David Eubank for the pCAM Pro

pCAM Pro is a mobile software application developed for Apple's iOS devices that offers a comprehensive suite of 26 cinematography tools designed for television and film professionals. These tools include calculations to guide decisions on designing camera shots, set design and construction, selecting lenses and camera sensor formats, achieving proper exposure and color balance, creating flicker-free lighting and lighting designs, and functional eye-light and lighting effects, among others. Most notably, it allows for accurate pre-visualization of specific lens and camera pairings, making it an invaluable tool for set crews.

Recipients: Thomas Riedel, Jake Dodson, Wolfgang Fritz, Jiou-Pahn Lee for the Riedel BOLERO Wireless Intercom

Riedel Bolero's ADR (Advanced DECT Receiver) wireless intercom solution with multi-diversity and anti-reflection technology, delivers greater RF (radio frequency) robustness than ever seen before in the industry. In addition, it offers Touch 'n Go NFC (near-field communication) belt-pack registration and versatile operation as a wireless belt pack, a wireless key panel, or (an industry first) a walkie talkie. It also features bluetooth compatibility for phone connections. It successfully provides clear communications in venues that had previously been difficult or impossible to cover due to physical venue design or competing DECT (digital enhanced cordless telecommunications) systems.

Recipients: Jeffrey Gray, Russell Hocken, Barrett Phillips, Greg Smokler for the SmallHD Monitor Platform

SmallHD's rugged and daylight-viewable production monitors have become a staple on every production set, from scripted dramas to live broadcasts. SmallHD's hardware platform features an entirely custom electronic architecture that allows for continuous expansion of features and connectivity as well as enabling the unique industry leading PageOS 5 monitoring software system. From the compact on-camera Smart 5 and Smart 7 series to the 4K production monitor line, SmallHD has created a unified and cohesive series of monitors that allow for accurate and consistent viewing and color reproduction across different cameras and applications, ensuring a consistent creative vision from set to final output.

Recipients: Meir Shashoua, Yaniv Alon, Shai Fishman for the Waves Clarity Vx Pro

Clarity Vx Pro is a revolutionary noise-reduction plugin that uses the cutting-edge and powerful Neural Networks engine developed by Waves to separate dialogue from ambience at the highest quality without artifacts and in real time, which sets a new standard in post-production. Addressing today's post-production needs, Clarity Vx Pro allows for real-time processing and vastly speeds up and enhances the workflow of dialogue editing and mixing. Clarity works in most DAWs (digital audio workstations) to create immediate, clean results without having to render, bounce, duplicate or consolidate tracks. It allows editors and mixers to listen to the dialog processing as part of the whole mix in context.

Source: Television Academy

Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.