The Television Academy has announced the recipients of the 2025 Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards honoring an individual, company or organization for developments in broadcast technology. The awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, Oct. 14, at the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, California.

“Behind every unforgettable moment on screen is a breakthrough in science, technology or engineering,” said Cris Abrego, chair of the Television Academy. “These groundbreaking innovations transform the way stories are created, shared and experienced. We celebrate these Emmy winners for forever changing how we experience the magnificent power of television.”

“This year’s Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards acknowledge the wide range of technologies used in our industry to aid the storytelling process,” said Barry Zegel, co-chair of the Engineering, Science & Technology Committee. “The award recipients represent a remarkable group of cutting-edge technologies that have advanced television production, safety and artistry in ways unfathomable when our industry began. In addition, we are recognizing the innovators responsible for remarkable production tools and setting standards that have revolutionized broadcast production and distribution.”

Added co-chair Wendy Aylsworth, “We also extend our hearty congratulations to Mark Schubin, who is receiving the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award, and to BBC Research & Development on receiving the Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award. Both are incredibly deserving of these prestigious legacy awards.”

The Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards are made possible by Television Academy sponsors Decoy, FIJI Water, Franciacorta, Johnnie Walker Blue Label, LG, People, The Ritz-Carlton and United Airlines.

The following is a list of awards and recipients to be recognized:

Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award

This award honors a living individual whose ongoing contributions have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering.

This year's recipient is Mark Schubin.

Mark Schubin (with a degree in chemical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology) has been in television since 1967, working on every aspect, including design, manufacturing, lighting, sound, camera, editing and distribution. His diverse projects have spanned the world on all seven continents, including Antarctica, from operas to the Olympics. He helped develop the broadcasting of the Metropolitan Opera (The Met) productions to cinemas and television stations around the world and has continued supporting this project for many years since its inception.

Mark refers to himself as an “Engineer and Explainer”: His non-judgmental — but humorous — communication of facts and arcane — but relevant — information is what endears him to creatives, business executives and technologists alike. This is why he has been the program chair of the HPA Tech Retreat since 1998, speaks frequently at events and seminars on a wide array of technical topics and on the history of television, and has been a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Engineering Awards committee for more than 30 years.

A prolific engineering historian, educator and professional writer, when Sports Video Group asked him to do so, he changed his more than 33-year-old monthly column on "Video Research" in Videography magazine into SchubinCafe, which is archived by the Library of Congress. Mark’s lifetime of accomplishments in the television industry are noted beyond this archive by his numerous publications, patents and awards.

For more information, visit SchubinCafe.com.

Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award
This award honors an agency, company or institution whose contributions over time have significantly impacted television technology and engineering.

This year's recipient is BBC Research & Development

BBC Research & Development has had a proud history of shaping how we watch and experience television as it focused on its public mission in support of broadcasting. Since its founding in 1930, the team has led the way in breakthroughs that became everyday essentials — like FM radio, stereo sound and the Radio Data System that sends song titles and traffic updates to car radios. Over the decades, they’ve been central to important advancements in television, playing a pivotal role in the development and standardization of High-Definition Television (HDTV), Ultra High-Definition Television (UHDTV), Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) for the carriage of High Dynamic Range (HDR) information and 5G networks.

Looking ahead, their work continues to help define the future of television in its research on Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). BBC Research & Development continues to lead and participate in the important industry collaboration on the impact and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). As co-founders of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, BBC Research & Development is also helping to create standards that will allow media creators to understand better human/AI collaboration and copyrightability of AI-generated media. Behind the scenes and screens, BBC R&D remains an important industry force that shapes how television can help us connect with stories and each other, today and in the future.

For more information, visit BBC.co.uk/rd.

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.

George Dochev and Peter Thompson, LucidLink
LucidLink is a cloud-native storage collaboration platform that streams data on demand, letting creative teams access and edit the same files instantly from anywhere - without syncing, downloading, VPNs, or complex IT. It mounts like a local drive and provides a single source of secure, always-up-to-date files. In media & entertainment, LucidLink powers edit-in-place, VFX, audio, and finishing workflows, supporting growing files and enabling distributed teams to work on large media as if it were local. Widely adopted by leading studios, streamers, and creative houses, LucidLink has become an essential tool for television projects worldwide.

For more information, visit LucidLink.com.

Ian Sampson for the development of Hush Pro
Hush Pro is an AI-powered audio plugin that isolates dialogue from ambient noise, transient sounds, and room reflections. It allows editors and re-recording mixers to clean up production audio with remarkable efficiency, minimal artifacts, and exceptional quality. Since its release, Hush Pro has quickly become an essential tool at post-production studios around the world, delivering pristine dialogue while significantly reducing the need for ADR.

For more information, visit HushAudioApp.com.

Fraunhofer IIS and intoPIX for the development of JPEG XS
JPEG XS is a state-of-the-art image compression format that transmits high-quality images with minimal latency and low-resource consumption, with virtually lossless image quality. JPEG XS is therefore ideal for live, professional video and broadcast applications where bandwidth presents challenges to deliver the highest quality. JPEG XS enables the transmission of high-resolution video streams over standard Ethernet infrastructure. This makes JPEG XS a fundamental game changer for real-time transmission of video for a wide variety of applications in media and studio technology as well as making real-time video processing in data centers practical.

For more information, visit: FraunhoferIIS.com and intoPIX.

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers [SMPTE], European Broadcasting Union [EBU] and Video Services Forum [VSF] for the development of the ST 2110 Suite of Standards
ST 2110 is a suite of standards for transmitting uncompressed video, audio, and data over digital Internet Protocol (IP) networks in professional media environments. It emerged as a replacement for traditional Serial Digital Interface (SDI) infrastructure, offering greater flexibility and scalability. It is now widely adopted, improving flexibility and scalability over the previous generation of Serial Digital Interfaces (SDI) and is foundational to all digital content transmissions.

For more information, visit SMPTE.org, EBU.ch and VSF.tv.

Mark T. Noel, Jesse Noel, Casey D. Noel and J.D. Schwalm for the development of the NACMO series of motion bases
The NACMO series of motion bases are the first of their kind, developed as a mobile motion base built specifically for television and cinema production. These machines provide a safe and streamlined approach to giving six axes of motion (seven with the optional rotator) to any otherwise static prop or set piece be it a boat, helicopter or car. The largest motion base — “Mo” — has a 75,000-pound capacity and can give all levels of motion to provide a real experience that translates on the screen for the environment and the actors involved. NACMO motion bases can be set up on location or on a sound stage. They are often used in conjunction with LED volume stages.

For more information, visit NACeffects.com.

Jayson Dumenigo for the development of Action Factory’s Play’n with Fire Hydrogels
Action Factory’s Play’n with Fire Hydrogels are innovative, high-performance polymers engineered to provide unmatched protection against extreme heat during the performance of fire stunts. Designed for durability and application at 74-76 degrees F; not iced, these gels maintain exceptional stability and require minimal reapplication even under the most intense conditions, significantly cutting down on the time it takes to accomplish a fire stunt on set. In a record-breaking stunt, it withstood direct flame exposure for five minutes and 25 seconds and temperatures upward of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Its reliability, ease of use and groundbreaking heat-protective technology make Play’n with Fire gels a game-changer for television and stunt professionals, setting a new standard in safety and performance.

For more information, visit AFstunts.com.

Rob Drewett and Andy Nancollis for the development of the AGITO Dolly System
AGITO is a versatile, compact modular robotic dolly system designed to keep cameras steady and in motion for film and television production. Often likened to a “Swiss Army Knife” for camera movement, it folds the work of multiple traditional rigs into a single, reconfigurable platform. With quick-switch modes including free-roaming, track-based, overhead and MagTrax — the latter using a simple strip of magnetic tape to guide the camera with precision, allowing crews to reset quickly and save valuable time on set — AGITO delivers everything from classic tracking shots to complex, repeatable moves all from one adaptable system. This groundbreaking approach represents a leap forward in the art and engineering of camera movement — opening up fresh creative possibilities for both camera operators and cinematographers.

For more information, visit MotionImpossible.com.

Andy Carluccio, Jonathan Kokotajlo, Eyal Hadida and Brendan Ittelson for the development of Zoom for Broadcast
Zoom for Broadcast is a media integration platform that turns Zoom Meetings into broadcast-ready feeds, extracting individual high-quality video and audio from remote participants and routing them into professional live productions as though they were in-studio. It gives producers deep control over each guest’s AV settings, uses Zoom’s global cloud infrastructure to deliver low-latency, reliable streams without costly equipment or complex setups, and elegantly scales from one guest to hundreds in a familiar meeting experience. With robust application programming interface (API) and software development kit (SDK) support, it plugs into existing production tools, making high-quality remote contributions both accessible and affordable — and eliminating the traditional barriers of expense and technical complexity in live broadcasting.

For more information, visit: Zoom.com

Boris Yamnitsky, Jason Clement, Mike Escola and Peter McAuley for the development of Boris FX Continuum
Boris FX Continuum stands as one of the most enduring plugin collections in post-production history, relied upon for decades by editors, motion graphics designers and VFX artists. Its tools have shaped the look of broadcast television, becoming a defining standard for effects, transitions and image restoration. With a legacy defined by reliability and innovation, Continuum continues to evolve through graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration, machine learning–driven effects and a deep library of presets, ensuring its ongoing role as a cornerstone of modern post-production.

RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF.—The movers and shakers of the content production community gathered under the HPA Tech Retreat banner once again here in southern California’s Coachella Valley resort area to hear about the latest industry trends, technological breakthroughs and issues, network, and also “kick back” a bit from winter doldrums.

The year’s event, held Feb. 16-20, marked the 30th anniversary of a gathering that began as a rather small “winter break” and eventually morphed over the years into a consistently sold-out “must attend” conference, with attendance limited to 800. The Hollywood Professional Association serves the professional community of the post-production industry in film, television, and digital media.

As might be expected, the topic of artificial intelligence permeated the 2025 Tech Retreat, with AI either the subject or object of more than a third of the presentations, and managing to creep into a number of other panel discussions and exchanges of information. (AI-related topics even factored into the Retreat’s daily “breakfast roundtable” discussions where attendees could listen to, and join in, timely discussions as they enjoy breakfast.)

The Human Factor In AI-Based Content Creation
“This year’s topic could not be more timely,” said Seth Hallen, HPA past-president, in opening the conference’s initial “Supersession,” which was themed “The Evolving Human Role in AI-Driven Film and TV Production and Post-Production Workflows.”

“A year ago, we sat on this stage and introduced — and maybe in some cases — dragged people into this world of AI,” said Hallen. “Since then, we have marveled at the sheer power of these tools. AI is transforming workflows and long-held processes, and causing more debate than any technology shift that we’ve seen in years. But today, we’re going to shift our focus. Let’s refocus our attention away from the tools themselves and turn, in fact, to the humans, because the real power of AI isn’t about replacing creativity, it’s about amplifying it.

Hallen then turned the program over to Renard Jenkins, president and chief executive officer of I2A2 Technologies, Studios and Labs, who stressed the importance of the human factor in meaningfully creating anything with artificial intelligence.

Jenkins observed that one year ago, AI’s stage of development could be compared to that of an infant or toddler, and in the intervening period, that toddler has now developed into a teenager. “We’re at the stage where AI thinks it knows more than we do,” he said. “We can do nothing right in AI’s eyes. We are not helpful to AI.”

Jenkins noted, however, that whether or not “the teenager” agrees, it still needs guidance.

“The teenager still needs the input from parents. Teenagers — no matter how smart they think they are — can only learn, can only grow [if they have guidance].”

In relating this human analogy to AI, Jenkins stressed that developers of the technology needed to spend plenty of time to be sure that their models “are ethically sourced, responsibly built, and actually have a purpose,” and not to merely “graft off what’s already there.”

He also offered encouragement for anyone who might feel threatened by the incursion of AI into the content creation industry. “If anybody tells you that AI is going to replace the workers, replace the artists, AI is going to replace, replace, replace…, I will theorize that person is extremely misguided as to how these tools and how these systems should be used, and how they can be most impactful to us as a society.”

Jenkins admonished anyone whose work and career path will likely involve AI technology to take advantage of the educational opportunities that now exist in the area of artificial intelligence and get “upskilled.”

“Upskilling” is the way forward for those of you who are concerned about where our industry is going,” he said. “Start now Prepare yourself for where this is going. Get yourself into this space.”

A Fresh Look At AI
Tech Retreat presentations also examined changes in AI evolution during the past year.

In one of these — “Is The Industry Sitting On An AI Goldmine Or A Ticking Timebomb?” — Richard Welsh, SMPTE president and senior vice president of innovation at Deluxe, provided an update on recent legal decisions involving the technology, with one of these providing some amplification on the previously-established rulings on copyrightability involving AI.

“The [U.S. Copyright] Office confirms that the use of AI to assist in the process of creation or the inclusion of AI-generated material in a larger human-generated work does not bar copyrightability,” said Welsh, in citing a very recent (Jan. 29, 2025) U.S. Copyright Office bulletin. He added that this excluded, however, “the mere provision of prompts.”

Welsh said that the European Union is also taking a fresh look at AI, repeating a Feb. 12 dispatch from Reuters that reported that “draft rules that regulated technology patents, AI and consumer privacy to messaging apps had been scrapped.”

He also noted that an EU “Liability Directive” now allows consumers to bring lawsuits based on “harm due to the fault or omission of (the) provider, developer or user of AI technology,” and that new legislation requires generative AI developers to disclose if copyrighted material is used in training data.

Welsh said that the “ticking timebomb” in the title of his presentation referred to legal aspects surrounding content that involved AI in some way. “We in the industry need to spend a lot of time talking about this,” said Welsh.

In looking at some of the items content creators needed to consider when involving AI in their work, Welsh noted that “AI needs to be trained only on your own work, so data from other’s works doesn’t get in there.”

He also stated that traceability of all elements used in creating content was very important. “Rights are going to become more and more important; this is already a big issue,” said Welsh. With the explosion of content originating from dashcams, surveillance cameras, other non-mainstream sources, it’s more important than ever to know where your video clips are coming from.

“Every bit of data that comes into your organization needs to be tagged as to its source,” said Welsh. “Tag everything.”

Can AI Have A Role In Sustainability?
In a slightly different take on the value of AI in the media industry, Barbara Lange, principal and chief executive officer of Kibo121, noted in her presentation — “AI for Good: The Role of Emerging Tech in Sustainability”— that AI was something of a double-edged sword.

Lange observed that AI is a very energy-hungry technology, stating that “by 2030, over 20% of U.S. electricity could be powering data centers for AI,” and noting that in light of this “sustainability is not just a responsibility; it’s a business imperative.”

Lange stated that AI did have a “plus side,” as it is a powerful search tool, and in this application could be used effectively by content creators to reduce the need for re-shoots, which in turn would save time, money, and transportation costs, all of which would go to reducing the M&E industry’s carbon footprint.

“AI is already being deployed in other industries with an eye to sustainability,” she said. “Increasing efficiency in transportation, enhancing indoor climate control, making appliances smarter, optimizing agriculture outcomes, optimizing electricity use, and maximizing resources and utilities.”

Everyone Can Now Be A Content Producer/Distributor
Apart from the main AI theme, a special pre-conference TR-X (“Tech Retreat eXtreme”) program themed “Affordable Production” focused on today’s increasing democratization in the areas of content creation and distribution. “Affordable Production.”

“I don’t know of any other generation in Hollywood that’s been confronted with such a tectonic industry shift in such a small period of time,” stated TR-X co-chair, Mark Chiolis, in describing the disruption created by the emergence of inexpensive devices for capturing content and the pipelines and channels for distributing this content.

In his “Disruptive Pixels: The Big Power of Small Budgets” session keynote, Mike Cioni, founder of several start-up M&E production operations, described the shift in consumer content consumption patterns, citing a survey that revealed “in 2023 the average American purchased only two movie theater tickets, and 84% of podcasts are being viewed on video platforms.”

Cioni blamed this situation on a reluctance by the content production industry to break away from long-established practices and patterns associated with maintaining perhaps an artificially high level of quality, referring to this condition as “friction.”

“In order for us to maintain that quality, we introduced a lot of friction,” he said. “This worked for a long time. If you make a production, you know that it is slow, it is hard, it is expensive. Production and distribution is super complicated and hard. Many companies are now acting on their momentum rather than their propulsion. I believe that there is major trouble on the horizon. I believe that this is why our industry is facing what it’s facing.”

Cioni noted that while breaking away from established practices could be risky, there were rewards for those willing to try something new and different. “If you bet wisely on early adopted technologies, when those inevitably hit as industry standards, your path will be so far ahead that everybody else will be behind.”

Cioni drove home the fact that “the technology gap is shrinking,” by showing video clips illustrating the image quality provided by three very different cameras. The first was captured with an ARRI Alexa, the second with a Fuji GFX 100 camera in the under-$10K price range, and the third was produced by a consumer iPhone. Other than some slight differences in depth of field, the imagery was strikingly identical in quality.

“The difference between a camera costing nearly $100,000 is not that much different than a $1,000 camera,” said Cioni. “It’s all about accessibility to technology.”

In commenting on the shift in content distribution platforms, Cioni noted that “YouTube represented 20.3% of TV viewing in July 2024 according to Nielsen.”

Mark Schubin’s Industry Updates
A regular feature of Tech Retreats is Mark Schubin’s “Technology Year in Review,” in which, in his words, “presents news items involving the cinema and television industry that may have gone unnoticed by many.”

This year, Schubin, a multiple Emmy Award winner and the Retreat’s official “wrangler” or “program maestro,” led off with some good and bad news about movie houses.

“Cinema is still not dead, I’m happy to report,” said Schubin, observing that gross receipts for 2024 were just about what they’d been in 2005. “The problem is that the consumer product index has gone up 65% since 2005, so it’s not the same. It’s comparing apples to oranges.”

Schubin reported that in order to remain in operation, some citizens groups are now buying movie theaters and operating them on a non-profit basis.

Other lesser reported industry news in Schubin’s review included Nielsen figures indicating that streaming now accounts for more than 43% of all viewing, and that while the majority of streaming content a year ago was older TV shows, it’s now mostly new content. Another reversal is the way viewers are consuming content.

“The TV is now a primary viewing device,” he said. “People are not using their phones as much as they’re using their TVs.”

Other factoids from Schubin included a comeback of the videocassette, with a new movie, “Alien: Romulus,” being offered in VHS format in a limited release, genetically-engineered bacteria that can be used as a form of AI in solving a range of problems, the promised availability from Nvidia of a consumer supercomputer for less than $250, and a new satellite constructed entirely from wood.

Looking Forward
The 2026 HPA Tech Retreat will again be held at the Westin Rancho Mirage Golf Resort & Spa. Conference dates are set for Feb. 15-19.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif.—Although “Innovation” and the phrase “Let the Sparks Fly” were the themes  of the 2024 HPA Tech Retreat, several of the most perceptive sessions involved looking back— be it for a month, a year or decades into the archives of the moving images industry.  Each presentation offered perspectives and outlooks that will affect the TV and video industries in the years and decades ahead. 

HPA President Seth Hallen summed up the pertinence of these times when he cited the over-arching topic of one day’s sessions. He called artificial intelligence a “fundamental transformative change” which is “different” from other technologies that have affected the media industries. “Don’t fear AI,” said Hallen, who is  co-Managing Director of Light Iron; he urged the Hollywood Professional Association audience to find ways to use AI “to enhance the human touch” and explore the “ability to integrate these tools” into productions.

His support of AI underscored the reflective presentations that chronicled recent industry developments.

For example,  Mark Harrison, CEO of DPP, focused on the dominance of AI at January’s CES (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. Digital Maestro Mark Schubin also cited AI in his wrap-up of 2023’s industry-shaping developments. A panel of media archivists examined AI’s value as a tool to safeguard and search content. And Eluvio’s Michelle Munson acknowledged AI’s role in establishing and maintaining trust throughout the production and distribution process.

 Software—Especially AI—Dominated CES
Artificial intelligence is “finally a technology worth shouting about,” said Mark Harrison, CEO of the DPP [Digital Production Partnership], an international network of media and technology developers, as he began his review of January’s CES. After the pandemic downturn, CES is “again reassuringly unpleasant to be at,” Harrison joshed as he plunged into the otherwise predictable roster of top technologies from the mega-show (smart homes, wearables, robotics, automotive) described in the 100+ page CES report his company just published.

He called the market for consumer TV receivers “as flat as its product.”  The global market for such devices is now about $97 billion and will fall to $96 billion by 2028. “Of course, those TVs get incrementally better each year, as the latest technology gets cheaper, and is standardized.”  He pointed out that content providers already struggle to supply media to a technical specification that matches the capability of the TV’s on which that content is consumed.

Harrison, who founded DPP, previously held senior roles at the BBC and in independent production. His over-arching perception of CES was that “software has become more important than hardware”—a stunning reorientation of a trade show long known as the gizmo and gadget bazaar.

 “Software is killing consumer electronics,” Harrison told the HPA audience.

 One prominent factor in DPP’s evaluation was its “heat map,” which tracks the buzz and growth of innovative products in more than two dozen categories over the past 15 years. The line for high-end displays has been chilly for the past few years, and the smart TV trajectory has become almost frozen. 

Harrison explained that DPP has seen its heat scores in video technology as “modest” and determined that, “we were in a period of pragmatism.  The emphasis seemed to be on making existing technology work better for consumers and businesses alike, rather than hyping  up the new.”

DPP’s report summarizes that, “This year our heat scores are the coolest ever” which may indicate “actual maturity.”   But the analysis also cautions that, “The picture is more complicated.”  It suggests that the reason for the “sense of disappointment” at CES stems from the absences of new tech this year, but then asks, “When something isn’t boiling,  is it cooling down or hotting up?”  Harrison contended that something new may be brewing, but he did not speculate about specific forthcoming products or services.

As for AI,—the #1 topic at CES – Harrison called it “a revolution hiding in plain sight,” although now it is “stranded on the shoulders” of giant providers who are “confident about being able to deploy generative AI.”  But he noted the “AI problem”: innovation requires investment, and he expressed concern about the impact of negativism and financiers’ trepidation about the risks (political and otherwise) regarding AI.

Schubin’s Intelligence
Earlier, Mark Schubin, who calls himself the “Program Maestro of the HPA Tech Retreat”—in his summary of 2023’s key developments—also acknowledged the onslaught of AI, although he called 2023 “the year of Intellectual Property.”

Schubin, the Emmy-winning long-time technology overlord of the Metropolitan Opera’s video production, cited the evolving role of Digital Rights Management (DRM) as an emerging barrier to home recording.  He pointed to developments involving ATSC 3.0 that could enable broadcasters to prevent their signals from being recorded. 

Schubin’s broad-ranging summary of last year’s developments included products such as the Sphere 18K Big Sky Camera, Canon’s Metalens, Apple Vision Pro (and the headset Virtual Reality category) plus the emergence of quantum dots as a new image and transmission feature.  

Although he did not elaborate on these products or forecast their successes in the marketplace, Schubin did cite problems he has seen in some streaming content, such as “dark screens.” He also indicated that the many variations of artificial intelligence—with all their benefits, hurdles and hallucinations—will continue to play a larger role in the video production industry.

Digitizing Archives: Do It Now
Looking further back—while emphasizing future values—a panel of media archivists in a coordinated presentation explained “Why Right Now Is the Time to Digitize Your Archive.”  They explained that in 20 years, more than four million hours of TV and movie content has been digitized, but that the pace has picked up so that last year, more than seven million hours was preserved—nearly double the sum of the previous two decades.

The panelists—representing an array of experiences in production and the history of the TV and film industry—included Carin Forman, Global Partner Lead for Media and Entertainment, Amazon Web Services  (moderator); Heidi Shakespeare, CEO, Memnon Archiving Services; Andrea Kalas, SVP-archives, Paramount Pictures and Linda Tadic, Founder/CEO of Digital Bedrock.

“Content Discovery has forever changed,” the panelists concurred, citing tools such as OpenAI CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pretraining). They described CLIP’s multimodal AI model that combines knowledge of English-language concepts with semantic knowledge of images to power video semantic search, image classification and other factors.

The panelists cited the burdens of archiving, especially “technology obsolescence” which means that playback devices and preserved files are not available. They pointed out that, for example, most surviving VTRs operate on refurbished heads with parts scavenged from “donor machines,” thus reducing the equipment pool further. Moreover, “Knowledge Obsolescence” is already appearing as engineers “with the requisite skills are nearing retirement and attracting younger generations is a challenge.”  

Their side remarks underscored the often-unexpected values of being able to track digital assets.  For example, Tadic explained that when she worked at HBO during the first season of “The Sopranos,” no one really knew that the show would become such a landmark success. She recalled that the outtakes “reel” from the first shows were deliberately destroyed—footage that could have become valuable after the eventual success of the series.

Finally, they warned that, “Just because it’s digital, doesn’t mean it’s preserved.”

"Digital preservation requires ongoing care and management,” they said. “There is no ‘store and ignore’ medium. Migration is necessary to keep your digital content alive.”

Managed digital preservation involves planning, policies and processes, the archivists insisted in their joint presentation.

Establishing Trust
Michelle Munson, co-founder and CEO of Eluvio, described the security vulnerabilities of digital content, including problems that can develop via the “conflation of storage and rendering”—factors of the AI process.  Berkeley, Calif.-based Eluvio has developed the “content fabric protocol,” an open and decentralized, streaming, content distribution, and storage network built for the third generation Internet.

In her HPA presentation on “Content Authenticity and Provenance: Protocol vs. Workflow,” Munson acknowledged that storage formats can be “very kludgy” and contended that the “claims generator is outside the control loop.”  She supported the use of blockchain (which Eluvio supports) as a way to “take care of distribution over decentralized networks.”

Munson, who has been involved in establishing the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, explained that C2PA’s specification is intended to codify procedures and to “establish trust” in digital distribution.

The recent HPA Tech Retreat was a gathering of industry professionals to discuss many different aspects of the broadcast and video industries, including NextGen TV and how new technologies are assisting with productions.

Mark Schubin, the HPA program maestro, took time during the retreat to look back at the last year in technology. Take a look at Schubin's presentation in the video below, courtesy of HPA.

For more information about HPA or HPA Tech Retreat, please visit www.hpaonline.com.

PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.—This year’s HPA Tech Retreat will once again see a gathering of industry-leading thinkers who will discuss the latest trends in the creation, management and dissemination of video content. The weeklong Palm Springs event, which is capped at just 700 attendees and begins Monday, Feb. 11, will feature a main conference program, the “TR-X Tech Retreat Xtra” focused on eSports, as well as breakfast roundtables and a curated innovation zone, along with other opportunities for industry leaders to meet and exchange ideas.

The event officially gets underway with the Tuesday Supersession, which will highlight Next-Gen Workflows and Infrastructure, featuring insight from Tom Graham of Dolby on Dolby Vision from set to consumer; Tina Eckman of Dolby on Dolby Atmos from set to consumer; and Scott Kramer of Netflix on immersive sound from capture through post production.

HDR AND THE MOVE TO 8K

Numerous sessions on Wednesday including an HDR “Mini” Session, will address the importance of HDR in video production. There will be an introduction to HDR, how it is being used in anime and how it can push the limits of motion in video production. These sessions should highlight how 4K and UHD are not interchangeable terms, and that resolution is just part of the picture with HDR playing an important role in UHD, according to HPA president Seth Hallen, who will host the “Intro to HDR” session.

“UHD implies not only resolution, but other things such as HDR and its wider color gamut,” said Hallen, who is also head of global strategy and business development at Pixelogic. “Studies have shown that the human brain can detect a greater range of light to dark than it can picture resolution. HDR thus is a massive improvement for overall picture quality. But it can also ensure that the content is delivered as closely as possible to the filmmaker’s intent. Hopefully the consumer will appreciate that.”

None of that is to say that resolution isn’t important, and even as 4K content is only now starting to pick up steam the industry is clearly looking ahead to what the next generation—8K—can offer. Pete Putman of ROAM Consulting will host two sessions, as well as take part in a breakfast roundtable—firstly offering his thoughts on HDMI 2.1 and Display-Port before providing an overview of products in the world of consumer electronics that were introduced at the recent 2019 CES in Las Vegas. Putman will then dive into what we can expect in 8K in 2019 and beyond in the session, “8K: Whoa! How’d We Get There So Quickly?”

“The 8K talk will be an overview of everything from cameras to displays, based on current information,” said Putman, who will discuss various aspects of the technology including appropriate codecs for compression and data transfer rates. “It should bring people up to speed on just how fast 8K is coming to market.”

TAKING IT ON THE ROAD AND BRINGING IT HOME

Mark Chiolis, director of business development for the Mobile TV Group will host Thursday’s “Remote and Mobile Production Panel,” which will discuss the changing world of remote production that now includes not only live sports and concerts for broadcasters, but addresses how this is fitting into the world of streaming services and the growing eGames/eSports market.

“With so many live events you start out with a blank canvas and the set up for a production crew is very tight,” said Chiolis. “We’ll discuss the whole gamut of what is involved in preparing for a live production and what we’ve seen come out in 2018 and what we expect to help with productions in the next couple of years. Part of the discussion will include the role of REMI applications [REMote Integration], IP workflows, virtual productions and of course, eSports. It should be an exciting time for live production.”

Thanks to larger TV screens with greater resolution joined by surround sound systems, seeing movies at home has gotten closer to what filmmakers have intended, and this aspect of what the viewer actually sees will be discussed in “Downstream Image Presentation Management for Consumer Displays.” Moderated by Michael Chambliss of International Cinematographers Guild, the session will feature Steven Poster of the American Society of Cinematographers as a panelist.

“We, as the ASC, started participating at the HPA Tech Retreat seven years ago, and at the time we were asked why we were here,” said Poster. “Now they have asked us to give our presentation, which we see as important as it discusses the importance of the creative intent of the filmmaker.”

That intent of what the director and cinematographer has improved a lot from the days when movies were in essence “butchered” via pan and scan, but today even with HDR and greater picture resolution, there still needs to be more progress. Poster, who first formed a technology committee when he was ASC president 20 years ago, had a vision whereby the TV set could ensure that the picture is up to the standards of the filmmaker. However, he admitted that the technology wasn’t quite there at the time.

Now two and a half decades later that is finally becoming a reality.

“Our TV set technology has become quite good,” said Chambliss. “So why can’t we have a little bit of metadata that is used in the production making it way to the sets. So far Netflix and Sony have implemented what is called calibrated modes so that the set closely mirrors the monitors we used in the production. Instead of leaving this in a 1950s ‘it is up to the viewer to adjust the set,’ the smart TVs could optimize the picture. The sets are capable of doing this, so let’s automate the process.”

CAPTIONING AND SUBTITLES

Subtitling and captioning will get its moment in the spotlight at the Retreat with “IMSC 1.1: A Single Subtitle and Caption Format for the Entertainment Chain,” hosted by Pierre-Anthony Lemieux of Sandflow Consulting.

Lemieux will highlight IMSC, the W3C standard for worldwide subtitles/captions, which came about as the result of an international collaboration—the initial version of which was published in 2016.

“Technology has made it possible, along with flexible delivery for subtitles and captions to be provided in so much more content,” said Lemieux. “It has been in the broadcast world where the United States was the exception for providing subtitles for the hearing impaired, but worldwide there have been little mandates for accessibility. But that is changing.”

In addition, thanks to streaming services—notably Netflix, which provides content from international markets—as well as changing viewing habits, subtitles and captions are becoming much more important.

“Even people that aren’t hard of hearing are enjoying content in bed late at night or on buses and airplanes and having the sound on isn’t an option, so captions are necessary for the message to be conveyed,” added Lemieux. “It is easy to forget that just 10 years ago subtitles were literally burned on a film with a laser in France, and that was an expensive and difficult process. Today technology—notably IMSC—has made it easy for subtitles to be added to the content. Subtitles and captions were an afterthought, but now in the world of audio/video production these will be first class citizens.”

Predicting everything that attendees will see would be akin to looking into the future, said Mark Schubin, program chair at the HPA. “There’s a wild array of possibilities on both the acquisition and presentation ends. How do we deal with the new world?”

For more information, visithpaonline.

PALM DESERT, CALIF.—The annual Hollywood Production Association Tech Retreat convened on Feb. 19, bringing together television and cinema engineering and production professionals to participate in five days of presentations and discussions covering the latest developments in technologies and practices in content production and distribution.

Artificial Intelligence, HDR preparation, live event streaming, cutting-edge display technologies, intellectual property law, IMF technology and applications for content storage and exchange, VR, blockchain applications in content production and distribution processes and much more made up the agenda this year. The conference attracted some 680 attendees, making it once again a fully sold-out event.

The Retreat got underway on Monday, Feb. 19, with a half-day “Focus on Artificial Intelligence” session that explored the many sides and implications of this rapidly growing technology that promises to bring many benefits to content production and other areas, but at the same time by its very nature appears threatening to some. The session examined the current uses of AI, such as speech recognition and automatic captioning, as well as new implementations in taskings previously assigned to human operators. The session not only drilled down into AI’s technological side, but also considered ethical implications as well. A working AI implementation in the form of a virtual version of conference “maestro,” Mark Schubin, was demonstrated with a Q&A session, in which the flesh-and-blood Schubin quizzed his synthetic entity about such things as where Shubin had spent his youth (“I grew up in Hoboken, N.J., a city in which New York is merely a suburb”) and favorite movie (“A Night At the Opera”).

THE CLOUD, AND THE WAY IT’S CHANGING WORKFLOWS

The emergence of the cloud as a valuable tool in video production was explored in a Tuesday panel discussion—“Cloud Production and Tools”—moderated by Sundog Media Toolkit’s Rich Welsh, and featuring panelists Dave Benson, Chris Clarke, Chuck Parker, Matt Thomas and Roy Trosh.

“The cloud is real, viable, and we’re using it,” said Trosh, an engineer with The Mill post-production firm, remarking that handling their part of the Super Bowl-generated workload would not have been possible without tapping cloud technology.

“Our job is to create content; not preserve workflows,” said Benson, chief technology officer and co-founder of the BeBop Technology, a firm specializing in cloud-based workflow solutions. “There’s a place for individual designers to do certain things in a certain way. This is also a challenge. We try to develop our technology in the least intrusive way.”

The group discussed such cloud utilization issues as content security, latency, dropped frames, bandwidth limitations and cost control, as well as workarounds for post-production functions that don’t really work well in the cloud.

ECLIPSING VR TECHNOLOGY

Virtual Reality was in the limelight, with a Wednesday session devoted to what is billed as “the biggest live VR event to date,” the coverage of the Aug. 21, 2017 solar eclipse. Alx Klive, CEO and founder of 360 Designs, a production company that specializes in virtual reality, described the technology used to capture the eclipse, as well as some of the difficulties experienced in producing this VR first from multiple locations along the totality path of the eclipse.

The coverage involved seven observation locations, 21 cameras linked via an equal number of satellite circuits, motion-tracking jibs, moving-car and helicopter shooting platforms. Technical challenges included developing a system for remotely controlling camera iris settings and other parameters from thousands of miles away and overcoming synchronization issues with the multiplicity of cameras.

“Back in July last year, CNN approached us about covering the eclipse in live VR,” Klive said. “The challenges of doing this were immense. 360-cameras by their nature really work best with [close] proximity to their subject and there isn’t really anything further away than the sun, and you can’t really rehearse an eclipse either.”

Klive noted that the whole project had to be accomplished in just four weeks, and that as satellite trucks weren’t available until the day before the event, testing of the complete system couldn’t be performed any earlier. Backup methodologies and workarounds were prepared, but fortunately weren’t needed.

“The CNN eclipse broadcast was done right,” said Klive. “It was incredibly challenging and obviously ambitious, but it was also incredibly rewarding for everybody involved, so a true win-win.”

This year’s Retreat featured more than 40 mainstream presentations, as well as special “breakfast roundtable” discussion groups which provided attendees with the opportunity to delve into other areas of television and cinema technology. They could join any of the 20 or so specialized discussion groups offered on three consecutive days at the conference. “Roundtable” topics included light field cinematography, selection of the best media for long-term content storage, how to properly interface HDR displays, and thwarting cybercrime.

The Tech Retreat’s “Innovation Zone” hosted more than 60 exhibitors this year, with demonstrations of equipment and technologies ranging from video test and measurement gear to light field image capture.

The 2019 HPA Tech Retreat returns to the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa here in Palm Desert, Calif., Feb. 11-15.

LAS VEGAS—TV Technology asked a cross-section of NAB Show-goers a series of five questions regarding what they considered the main themes, evidence of those, whether or not these initiatives will take hold, and what promising technologies from past NAB Shows did not see daylight. (A complete list of quotes from respondents and links to their full 5Qs is at “NAB 2016 in 21 Quotes.”)

Mark Schubin,engineer and explainer (as well as engineer-in-charge at the Metropolitan Opera):
Q1.How many NAB Shows have you attended?
M.S. 44

Q2.What, in your opinion, were the main themes of the show this year?
M.S. In alphabetical order: ATSC 3.0, drones, HDR, IP, LED walls, and virtual reality.

Q3.What were some examples of these themes?
M.S. ATSC 3.0land outside South Upper, droneland and LEDwallsland in Central, and VRland in North.

Q4.Do you foresee any or all of these technologies or initiatives taking hold?
M.S. Like everyone else, I have a very hard time seeing into the future.

Q5.What technology that impressed you most at a past show didn’t see the light of day?
M.S. NICT’s live holography (though the Lytro light-field cinematography camera might be said to be a successor).

LAS VEGAS: There are few set standards for 4K, UHD, high dynamic range, high frame rate or wide color gamut. Each has a particular path from capture to the home through an HDMI cable into a 4KTV set from one of several manufacturers offering a variety of technologies. So how will adoption be achieved?

That’s what four top broadcast engineers take on during the NAB Show in a Tuesday, April 19 at 2:30 p.m. Super Session entitled, “4K, UHD, HDR and More—The Future of Video.” TV Technology’s Deborah D. McAdams will grill video expert Mark Schubin, SMPTE President and CBS Vice President of Engineering and Advanced Technology Robert Seidel, broadcast veteran Jim DeFilippis and Ericsson’s Senior Vice President of Technology for TV & Media Matthew Goldman with crowd-sourced questions from their peers.

Here, Mark Schubin provides a preview.

CROWD MEMBER:What provides the best bang for the buck: 2160p resolution, high dynamic, wide color gamut, or high frame rate (120 fps)?
SCHUBIN: In my opinion, HDR and HFR offer the most bang for the buck. HDR might be easier to implement, but it can increase motion artifacts, bringing us back to HFR.

C.M.:The Canadians are now doing baseball, basketball and hockey in 4K, and distributing it via cable. What is holding up the U.S. broadcasters?
SCHUBIN: They’re more sensible.

C.M.:What are their immediate challenges?
SCHUBIN: Viewers.

C.M.:What about standards? What’s needed?
SCHUBIN: Agreement (as usual in the case of standards).

C.M.:Beyond sports, what other genre will benefit and have a business ROI?
SCHUBIN: HFR is primarily for sports. HDR works on everything; 4K and wider color gamut are tough sells to viewers for anything.

C.M.:Will broadcasters be “forced” into 4K/UHDTV adoption similar to the evolution of HDTV?
SCHUBIN: I don’t think so. There is a much smaller perceptual improvement from HD to 4K than there was from SD to HD.

C.M.:What are the key dominos in the chain that need to be knocked over for the consumers to feel this is real and start spending? Is it availability of “great titles,” consumer devices, branded premium channels, marketing or something else not yet concocted?
SCHUBIN: 4K, again, has very limited perceptual grab. Anyone who doubts that should visit Bob’s demo at CBS with side-by-side giant screens. Wider color gamut sells only in a side-by-side demo; consumers would have to see it in stores that way, and store shopping is on its way out. HDR and HFR are both perceptually significant.
Some fear HFR is perceptually significant in the wrong direction for scripted programming. HDR might be easier to implement, but it depends a lot on the home viewing environment. HFR needs agreement on a bit-rate reduction system (compression).

C.M.:The young adults of today are notorious for consuming social content on small, portable devices. They are the future money for this. Why do they need it?
SCHUBIN: HFR is significant on any size screen at any viewing distance but primarily for fast-moving content. HDR is going to be tough on a handheld screen outdoors. 4K is largely irrelevant on a handheld screen, and WCG probably won’t be noticed. But even young adults are using larger screens for longer programming.

C.M.:How do we as an industry start our advancement to UHD and HDR?
SCHUBIN: Standards.

C.M.:What is the immediate opportunity for a TV group with regard to these technologies?
SCHUBIN: PR.

C.M.:Are we now headed toward 1080p60 with HDR and wide color as a first step, with 4K used in production and on-set display etc.?
SCHUBIN: From your words to the powers that be! Except maybe it’ll be just HDR on regular HD, and forget the 4K.

C.M.:What are your thoughts on HDR HD facilities versus native 4K HDR?
SCHUBIN: HDR works just fine on HD.

C.M.:Is the notion of HDR for HD now officially dead?
SCHUBIN: No one told me!

C.M.:Given the file sizes, do you think we should be significantly compressing in acquisition and post, just as we did in the early stages of HD?
SCHUBIN: For 4K, it’s probably necessary. For the other improvements, no.

C.M.:HDCam, while not perfect, was a pragmatic way of getting to HD and getting material out to audiences. What’s the equivalent for UHD?
SCHUBIN: HD.

C.M.:4K, 8K, UHD, and HDR require a very large network topology to support file transport…
SCHUBIN: I don’t understand that statement. What does “topology” have to do with anything? And the increased data rate for HDR borders on the insignificant; for the Philips version, it’s just 35 bytes per scene (not per frame or per second).

C.M.:…how do we justify that investment when the delivery to the home will not support the transport without heavy compression for years to come?
SCHUBIN: As you can tell from my other answers, I’m not a big fan of a move to 4K, but, if I were, I would point out that, for entropy coding, the sharper the pixels and the less change between pixels, the easier the compression. So raw 4K might be 8x the data rate of HD (1080i or 720p), but the compressed-data-rate increase would be a small fraction of that. Gary Demos showed some compression at the HPA Tech Retreat in February with extraordinary spatial resolution and dynamic range and not a high bitrate.

C.M.:Will 4K become a standard transmission? 
SCHUBIN: Not on my account.

C.M.:What are your views on affordability of transmission methods for 4K, that is, broadcast, broadband and/or satellite?
SCHUBIN: See my comments on “heavy compression” above.

C.M.:Do you think there is benefit to using HDR and/or 4K to author a better HD product that can be delivered to consumers without significant changes to current infrastructure, instead of racing to provide 4K?
SCHUBIN: In the case of HDR, absolutely. Grass Valley likes to show an image of a combined HDR/SDR sports production in which the SDR video controllers are constantly making adjustments (as usual) and the HDR video controllers were leaning back with their hands behind their heads. In general, the more you can offer post, the better. As for 4K, there have been mixed opinions about extracting an HD image from a portion of the frame. Potentially, increased sensor resolution would improve sharpness even for HD.

C.M.:Shooting UHD side-by-side with HD is too costly. How can we reduce the cost of producing sports in UHD and HDR?
SCHUBIN: For 4K, relatively simple downconversion is probably fine. For HDR, many people have been working on some form of algorithmic downconversion; at the moment, human intervention might be necessary (no worse than the job of a video controller).

C.M.:How can we do live production of HDR sports without needing separate “shaders” for an HDR/wide color gamut output and an SDR/normal color gamut output for legacy TVs?
SCHUBIN: See answer above. At worst, it would be one “shader” converting the HDR to SDR.

C.M.:Do you think that high frame rate is suitable for all genres?
SCHUBIN: Tough question! I think it’s great for anything intended to look “live” (sports, news, talk, game shows, concerts, operas, ballets, etc.). For scripted programming, everyone alive today has been watching it largely at 24 or 25 fps, and they are accustomed to that look. Is it just that they are accustomed to it, or is there some psychophysical reason that 24 or 25 fps helps suspend disbelief? I don’t yet know.

C.M.:Given the propensity of advertisers for brighter brights and whiter whites, how do we avoid the CALM Act for brightness?
SCHUBIN: Those helpful algorithms, again! But there is a real issue associated with long-term exposure to very high light levels: retinal “bleaching.” If you’re watching skiing for half an hour at high brightness and change channels to a night scene in a noir movie, it might be like driving into a tunnel at noon on a sunny day.

C.M.:How do we integrate interstitials into programming without brightness and color wars?
SCHUBIN: Those helpful algorithms, again!

C.M.:How well can we produce for both HD and HDR without serious compromises, particularly in graphics or saturated colors?
SCHUBIN: Keep the graphics in the SDR subset of HDR, and don’t sweat the saturated colors. As George Joblove pointed out at the HPA Tech Retreat, we should be dealing with gray as a reference, not black or white.

C.M.:Given the constraints of the television, cable and satellite system, how comparable will the broadcast experience be to the ultra Blu-ray?
SCHUBIN: Could be the same; could even be better.

C.M.:Given the wide disparity of displays and capabilities on the market, how well can we author once and use everywhere, and how much will the user experience vary?
SCHUBIN: Never mind the equipment! If the viewer turns lights on or off or opens or closes drapes, the experience changes. But that’s always been the case. Viewer experiences today vary greatly; that’s why The New Yorker was able to run a cartoon by Joe Dator on Sept. 8 showing a doctor telling a patient that he’d like to see about fixing his aspect ratio. Plenty of viewers are watching stretched people today.

C.M.:As HDR displays get better and do a nice job of presenting SDR-graded content better than it would look on a legacy UHD display, does this challenge the value of specific HDR grading? What percentage of average consumers will appreciate the difference?”
SCHUBIN: I haven’t yet seen HDR upconversion; I have no idea what it might look like.

C.M.:Whenwill lower-end 4K cameras offer servo lenses?
SCHUBIN: Define “lower end.” AJA’s “RovoCam” 4K camera has a built-in servo lens and costs $2,495 including the lens; is that “lower-end” enough?

Also see…
April 16, 2016
“Q&A: Matthew Goldman on 4K, UHD, HDR and More”
“Is it worth the investment to build a native 2160p infrastructure for the gain in user experience? This is what the broadcaster needs to grapple. This question is very different between a Hollywood studio production and live TV production or distribution.”

April 13, 2016
“Q&A: Jim DeFilippis on 4K, UHD, HDR and More”
“We have many standards, but what we are missing is clarity of the problem they are supposed to solve.”

INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—Wednesday morning at the HPA Technology Retreat started with concession, contradiction and tales of copyright antics.

SILVERMAN BOWS
Leon Silverman, whose day job is general manager of Disney’s Digital Studio, started the morning by stepping down as HPA president, literally handing a baton to Seth Hallen, whose career has spanned movie and TV production, software and the combination thereof as senior vice president of Global Creative Services at Sony DADC New Media Solutions.

SCHUBIN ESCHEWS
Then Mark Schubin provided a slide tour of articles countering popular perceptions. Super Bowl streaming, for instance, while ballyhooed for setting records, represented just 1.25 percent of this year’s TV audience. With a slide titled “Stagnation,” he noted the number of U.S. TV households has peaked, that this year’s Super Bowl was down from the last two, and that there has been no growth in the number of U.S. households online since 2013.

He noted the media most used by all demographics is radio.

He made a case for the return of physical media—Amazon starting a brick-and-mortar bookstore and the resurgence of vinyl LPs. He noted the return of the printing camera and Kodak’s reintroduction of Super 8. Then he named a number of major motion pictures shot at least in part on film: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Jurassic World,” “The Hateful Eight” and others. Oh, and movie theater box office had a record year in 2015.

Yet all is not retro. Schubin spoke about data storage on DNA, which migrates information inherently, and he showed a silicon retina from brain-inspired computing at IBM Research in San Jose, Calif., that would open the door for capturing motion images without frames.

BURGER INTERPRETS
Jim Burger then provided his annual rundown of what in the world is going on in Washington. Burger, a copyright law expert with Thompson Coburn LLC, said the House Judiciary has held more than 20 copyright hearings, but to no apparent avail.

“I couldn’t tell any basis for change, but they keep holding them,” he said.

What has been determined by the courts, however, is that a chimpanzee cannot hold a copyright to his selfies, Aereo and FilmOn still can’t redistribute broadcast TV content online, while Google can digitize 20 million university library books, and Cox Communications has to pay $25 million for not having a takedown policy.

On the Internet front, Burger noted the FCC reclassified broadband to impose network neutrality and is now facing 11 petitioners representing 39 companies, associations and individuals, in the D.C. Circuit Court.

Burger spoke briefly about the upcoming television spectrum incentive auction, about which the known unknowns outweigh all other factors.

The argument over whether or not an Aereo or a FilmOn is a cable provider continues, while the federal effort to commercialize the cable set-top box remains stalled because content is still work a lot of money.

Burger also follows drone regulation, a J.J. Abrams interprets Henry James sort of affair in overtime. Rules governing unmanned aerial vehicles for commercial use were due last September. The Federal Aviation Administration is handing out waivers—3,100 so far—while it continues pounding out rules. Meanwhile, drones have been crashing on the White House lawn with some regularity. The FAA consequently made D.C. a drone no-fly zone.

And then, there is the story of Troy Haupt, a North Carolina man who owns the only known recording of the very first Super Bowl game in 1967. Haupt’s father recorded it on two-inch tape on a Quadruplex reel-to-reel recorder, while the NFL lost all copies. Haupt offered his for $1 million. The NFL countered with $30,000 and threatened to sue him for infringement if he “exploits” the tape.