WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—Hans Hoffmann has been elected by the SMPTE membership to serve as SMPTE president for the 2021–22 term. Hoffman, head of media fundamentals and production at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), currently serves as SMPTE executive vice president and, on Jan. 1, 2021, will become the first European to serve as the Society's president.
"While he has a uniquely deep understanding of emerging technology in the modern media landscape,” said Barbara Lange, executive director at SMPTE, “he also is a proven talent-builder. … With Hans at the helm, SMPTE will be well-positioned to meet our industry's rapidly changing requirements and opportunities with purpose and agility, and I look forward to working with him."
Hoffmann, a SMPTE Fellow, joined the society as a young engineer and has served the organization in several different capacities including Board governor for the EMEA Region, vice president of standards and vice president of finance before becoming executive vice president. He has been involved with SMPTE, the EBU, the ITU and other international standards bodies throughout his career, and more recently with newer groups including founding the Inter SDO. He has decades of experience working on future media production technologies, with a current focus on media in the cloud.
"It's an honor to be elected to this leadership position at SMPTE," said Hoffmann. "I look forward to collaborating with the fantastic SMPTE team in White Plains, the SMPTE Board, and our membership to identify the Society's gravity points—strengths and areas we need to develop to grow now and in the near future. We have a world of opportunity ahead of us, and we need to be agile in positioning the Society to delve into the areas that address the rise of the cloud, IP, remote workflows and media creation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, software in place of hardware, and personalization and 'immersiveness' in media consumption.
Previously Hoffmann worked at the Institut fuer Rundfunktechnik in research and development for new television production technologies, joining the EBU in 2000 as a senior engineer in the technical department. He has chaired the EBU project groups P/BRRTV and P/PITV, which were both involved in standardization activities such as SDTI and file formats. Hoffmann is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the FKTG (Germany).
