Thank you, Phil

One of the great pleasures of being a technology journalist is the opportunity to work with people who truly love technology, and express that sentiment with the same enthusiasm that all people reserve for their passions. Some of those people are fierce, vivid advocates — Jan Crittenden comes to mind. Others have gently accepted their geekdom, and talk technology with a combination of reverence and bemusement. That was my experience of Jan's husband, Phil Livingston, who died today as we go to press.

Phil was a well-known technology voice at Panasonic over the past 28 years, in the last five years serving as technical liaison to more than 30 companies to help integrate Panasonic's digital compression technology into their products. As a guy who started his broadcast career before digital compression became so integral to everything, he became a practical and conscientious authority, someone who retained realistic expectations while championing new possibilities. He represented Panasonic on the board of WHD-TV, the Digital Model Station in D.C., and logged nearly two decades at ATSC, serving on the board for the past four years and as chairman until just last year. As a SMPTE member and fellow, he received a 2006 SMPTE Award for a paper he co-authored on solid-state memory for television acquisition.

I've said this before in these pages, but I've always been grateful for those individuals who were generous enough to patiently help me as a young journalist. Phil was one of those people. But in his case, I particularly appreciated another kind of generosity that I always got from him — reflected in his humor and his inclination to always be a person first and a video guy second. He often remembered the last thing that we had talked about, even if it had been months since we spoke (I sometimes wondered if he took notes). He peppered working conversations with references to the business of life — his home remodeling experiences, affectionate cracks about Jan, questions about my little girl, and the like.

Whenever my travels took me to the Panasonic offices in New Jersey, I always had a moment where I thought how pleasant it was going to be to see Phil — although our meetings were mostly brief, often in passing. Earlier this year, when I needed to talk to him, I got his business card out of the pocket of my winter jacket where I knew it would be — a souvenir of my last trip East. It was the only card I filed this way.

In lieu of flowers, the family wishes that donations be made to Compassionate Care Hospice, 140 Littleton Road, Parsippany, N.J., 07054.