SMPTE Recaps Annual Tech Conference, Symposium

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—The Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers today declared its 2018 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition and Symposium — held for the first time at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles — to be a success with 156 technical papers presented and a larger exhibitor space.

“We leveraged our new venue to expand the technical and educational offerings at SMPTE 2018, as well as the social and networking opportunities available throughout the event,” said SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange.

SMPTE has released a summary of highlights from the event, which includes:

  • The Oct. 22 SMPTE Symposium — entitled “Driving the Entertainment Revolution: Autonomous Cars, Machine Intelligence, & Mixed Reality” — dedicated to immersive media experiences that will contribute to the future of personal transportation.
  • The SMPTE Annual General Membership Meeting during which SMPTE President-Elect Patrick Griffis and SMPTE President Matthew Goldman introduced the organization’s strategic business plan and attended to other society business.
  • The annual Women in Technology Luncheon, presented by HPA’s Women in Post Committee and SMPTE, featuring keynote speaker Rachel Payne, CEO of FEM Inc.
  • Three days of technical presentations (Oct. 23–25) on a variety of topics including IP-based solutions and workflow, the Better Pixel Project, image evaluation for brighter displays, immersive visual experiences, HDR, AI, encoding, cloud, and the use of MAMs to better manage metadata;
  • The 4K 4Charity Fun Run hosted by AWS Elemental, which raised more than $10,000, part of which supports the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media;
  • The SMPTE 2018 Awards Gala and after-party at the San Francisco Ballroom at the Westin Bonaventure, hosted by Dean McFlicker of NBC.

Video presentations and technical papers currently are available to conference attendees and will be available online to the public on Jan. 28.

SMPTE 2019 will take place Oct. 21–24 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites. The society will issue its call for papers in February 2019.

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Phil Kurz

Phil Kurz is a contributing editor to TV Tech. He has written about TV and video technology for more than 30 years and served as editor of three leading industry magazines. He earned a Bachelor of Journalism and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism.