The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has announced the recipients of the 2008 Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards. The recipients will receive their awards during the Engineering Awards ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 23 at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles.
The Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Dr. Woo Paik for his digital video compression technology adopted by the HDTV Grand Alliance. Paik was cited for his leadership in the development of DigiCipher, the digital compression technology that is the basis for DTV broadcasting; and his leadership in the development of Video Cipher, the de facto standard for distribution of scrambled cable channels over satellite.
The Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award will be given to Evertz Technologies Limited. The company designs, manufactures and markets video and audio infrastructure equipment. The Farnsworth Award honors companies whose contributions over a long period of time have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering.
Engineering Emmys will be awarded to the Joint Video Team Standards Committee (JVT) for the development of the High Profile for H.264 MPEG-4 AVC compression scheme and Zaxcom for its Deva Location Sound Recorder.
The High Profile enables HD images in the H.264 video coding system used today to deliver HD video over satellite and cable TV as well as Blu-ray. Since its introduction in 1996, the Deva sound recorder has “revolutionized the entire process of location sound recording for television and has set the standard for how audio is recorded in the nonlinear age.”
Four Engineering Plaques will also be awarded. They will go to Scott Leva for the Precision Stunt Air Bag; Sebastian Cramer and Andreas Dasser for the Skater Dolly Product Family; Craige Bandy and Ed Bandy for the 360 Overhead Jib; and Media Magik’s Pandora's Box.
An Engineering Certificate will be presented to Paulo Castillo for the Motion Control Telescoping Timelapse Crane.
