Television Academy Announces Technology and Engineering Honorees

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has announced recipients of this year’s Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, and Litepanels is among the honorees for its pioneering development of LED lighting for television production. This marks the third time Litepanels has been recognized by NATAS.

The Technology & Engineering Emmys are awarded to living individuals, companies or scientific or technical organizations for developments and/or standardization in engineering technologies that either represent so extensive an improvement on existing methods or are so innovative in nature that they materially have affected television. 

“These awards recognize the talented and innovative leaders and companies that have made the incredible world of television possible,” says Robert Seidel, chair of the NATAS Technology & Engineering Committee.

Founded in 2001 by five gaffers and lighting engineers who wanted to revolutionize production lighting using newly emerging LED technology, Litepanels was previously honored by NATAS with a Primetime Engineering Emmy Plaque in 2005 and a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award in 2009. “It is an honor to be recognized a third time by NATAS,” says Litepanels co-founder Pat Grosswendt. “This award is testament to the ground-breaking vision I shared with my four original partners and to the continuing dedication of the entire Litepanels team to understanding the everyday challenges in television lighting.”

Here is the complete list of this year’s honorees:

System to Measure Video Performances and Demographics Across Multiple Platforms

• Nielsen
  

Pioneering Development and Deployment of Server-side Ad Manipulation and/or Playout for Adaptive Bitrate Video Distribution

• mDialog, Anvato (Google)
  
• NBCU
  
• This Technology (Comcast)
  
• Seawell (Commscope)
  
• Time Warner Cable (Charter)
  

Development of Open Perceptual Metrics for Video-Encoding Optimization

• Beamr
  
• Netflix
  
• University of Southern California
  
• Université de Nantes
  
• University of Texas at Austin
  
• SSIMWAVE
  
• Disney
  
• Google
  
• Brightcove
  
• ATEME
  

Development of the Event Signaling and Management API Standard

• CableLabs
  
• Comcast
  
• TimeWarner Cable (Charter)
  
• SCTE
  

Pioneering Deployment of the Event Signaling and Management API

• TimeWarner Cable (Charter)
  
• Arris (CommScope)
  
• Cisco
  
• Envivio (MediaKind)
  
• Harmonic
  
• RGB Networks (Imagine Communications)
  
• This Technology (Comcast)
  

Pioneering Development of LED Lighting for Television Production

• Litepanels LTD (Vitec Production Solutions)
  

Cross-MVPD Dynamic Ad Insertion for Cable Network Video On-Demand Content

• Canoe Ventures
  

AI/Optimization for Real-Time Video Compression

• Harmonic
  
• MediaKind
  
• ATEME
  
• Amazon Web Services
  

Invention and Pioneering Development of Intra-Pixel Charge Transfer CMOS Image Sensors

• Eric Fossum
  
• ON Semiconductor
  
• Eastman Kodak
  

Standardization of SMPTE ST 2110

• SMPTE
  
• Video Services Forum
  

Common Encryption

• European Broadcasting Union
  
• DVB
  

Content Delivery Networks

• Akamai Technologies
  

Standardization and Commercialization of Television – Broadcast, Hybrid Electrical and Fiber-Optic Camera Cable and Connectors

• SMPTE
  
• The Association of Radio Industries and Businesses
  
• European Broadcasting Union
  
• LEMO
  
• Belden
  
• NEMAL
  

OLED Reference Monitors for Creative, Technical, Quality Control and Client Viewing

• LG Electronics
  
• Sony Electronics
  

Dynamic Metadata for Optimal HDR and WCG Color Volume Mapping

• Dolby Laboratories
  

Advanced Authoring Format

• AAF Association (AMWA)
  
• Avid Technology
  
• BBC Research & Development
  
• European Broadcasting Union
  

Pioneering Secure Cloud-Based VFX Project Management and Collaboration at Scale

• Nelvana (Corus Entertainment)
  
• Shotgun Software (Autodesk)
  

Development and Pioneering Deployment of Synchronized Local DMA Advertising Capability for DBS / MVPDs

• Ampersand
  
• Comcast
  
• Charter
  
• Cox
  
• AT&T
  
• Dish
  
• Invidi
  

Standardization of the ISO Base Media File Format

• File Format Subgroup under ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG 3
  

On-Air Touch Screen for Data Visualization

• CBS
  
• CNN
  

Development of Massive Processing Optimized Compression Technologies

• Amazon
  
• ATEME
  
• Bitmovin
  
• Brightcove
  
• Disney
  
• Encoding.com
• Facebook
  
• Google-YouTube
  
• Netflix
  

Newsroom Computer System Used to Plan and Automate the Production of Linear Live-to-Air or Live-to-Recording News Program

• Associated Press
  
• Avid
  

The 72nd Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place virtually Oct. 10 in partnership with the National Association of Broadcasters at the NAB Show. The event will be streamed here.