ATSC honors Jim Starzynski with Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award

Jim Starzynski was honored May 10 by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) at its annual meeting as the 2011 recipient of the ATSC’s highest technical honor, the Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award.

Principal engineer and audio architect for NBC Universal Advanced Engineering, Starzynski has worked on TV commercial loudness and other digital television audio issues and led the effort to develop the ATSC A/85 Recommended Practice "Techniques for establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television."

"Jim’s leadership in audio loudness activities has been vital to the ongoing work of the ATSC and the television industry," said John Godfrey, chairman of the ATSC’s Board of Directors.

The Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act requires the FCC to mandate use of A/85 for commercial advertisements.

The Lechner Award is presented once a year to an individual representative of the ATSC membership whose technical and leadership contributions to the ATSC have been invaluable and exemplary. The title of the award recognizes the first recipient, long-time broadcasting technology leader Bernard Lechner, for his outstanding services to the ATSC.