Technical Emmy Awards

Mark Walker was happy. “I can’t believe I’mhere,” says Walker, director of engineering for digital newsproduction (DNP) at Thomson. The comment seemed to apply equally to hisfirst time visit to New York City and the Tech Emmy awards presentationhe had just sat down to enjoy.

It was October. For broadcasters that means it’s time for theNational Television Academy’s annual Technology & Engineeringawards dinner. Eleven other recipients joined Walker that October nightin the Plaza Hotel’s vast dining hall, along with a crowd ofwell-wishers, manufacturers, broadcast industry engineers, and others.But it wasn’t just his first trip to New York that most excitedhim, Walker said. He had just returned from customer visits that day,and heard firsthand how the soon-to-be Emmy award-winning NewsBrowsetechnology helped solve real needs. NewsBrowse, a key part of the GrassValley DNP system, enables desktop browsing of lower resolutionversions created from original, full res footage.

“We thought [NewsBrowse] would find a place in news operationsas a convenient, though rather minor tool,” says Walker.“But now I’m getting feedback from customers who are sayingit’s much more than this. They’re telling me ‘I needthis, I want this, I can use it for more than just newsproduction.’ That’s what’s so great--they’refinding ways to apply it far beyond news operations, making it thecenter of a whole new style of workflow management.”

Taking an innovative tool, and using it in a new way exemplifies thecreativity celebrated by the Tech Emmy awards. Both Thomson andPinnacle Systems received Emmys for development of a method to recordfull-resolution video while simultaneously generating low-resolutionproxies, which in turn enabled browsing, editing, or even broadcastingnews from PC desktops anywhere in the world. Both the Grass ValleyDNP--of which NewsBrowse is one part--and Pinnacle’s Vortex newssystem offer a more flexible workflow by implementing low-resbrowsing.

Now, news operations save time and effort, since digitized footagerecords as a high resolution, broadcast-ready original and a lowerresolution MPEG-1 browse version. Since the lower-res copy requiresmuch less bandwidth and storage, it’s easy to distribute it overlow-cost networks, whether a LAN or the Web, for rough edits or eventhe final assembly. Each news system then automatically conforms thefull res original.

Another intriguing technology garnering an Emmy, Thomson/Philips DPM(digital pixel management), yields multiple formats and resolutionsfrom a single CCD. At first, it sounds contradictory--how can one CCDchange as needed, to not only produce different aspect ratios--4:3 and16:9--but also different HD and SD formats, including 1080p, 1080i,720p, 480p, and 480i? Smaller-sized pixels are key. Unlike IT (InterLine) and FIT (Frame Inter Line) CCDs, which use photo-diodes, the chipemploys much smaller “photo-gate” elements.

“Having those [smaller pixels], it was possible to have the4320 vertical photo-gates needed to do multi-format imaging,”says Dr. Peter Centen, lead developer. Centen, then with Philips andnow R&D Group Leader for Thomson, says that the design solved apractical need, since developing, producing, and marketing a camera foreach of 18 possible HDTV standards wasn’t a realistic solution.Besides, Centen says, “We did not want to be a me too” inthe HD market. “With our own technology, it was clear we wouldhave an advantage over the competition, who had already chosen either1080i or 720p.”

So how can you get different HD formats out of those 4320 imageelements? By regrouping them on the fly into the pattern needed. Forexample, treat the pixels in groups of 4's (i.e. 4320/4) yields 1080p,while grouping in 8's delivers 1080i (that’s 4320/8), and groupsof 6's creates a 720p (4320/6) frame.

This year’s show also marked the debut of two new advancedmedia technology Emmys to address “media that both enhances andtranscends television,” according to the NTA. “The idea [ofthe awards] was to say to the industry: This is the best and thebrightest we have to offer, the leading edge of advanced media,”says Shelly Palmer, advanced media committee co-chair. The Emmys covertechniques that enhance original TV content and the creation ofnon-traditional programs or platforms such as EPGs (electronic programguides) and user interfaces.

Palmer, a force behind creating the award, heads the New York NTAchapter’s influential New Media committee. “Every year forthe last twenty years was to going to be the year of ITV (interactivetelevision),” says Palmer. “I think these Emmys said‘We’re here’. This may be the year when (ITV) reallystarts.” For a complete listing of the 2003 Tech Emmy awardwinners, please visit www.emmyonline.org.