Launched in 2006, the HPA Awards were designed to honor the creative and technical genius that power our industry. At that time, the behind-the-scenes talent that is an undeniable part of media creation was not as recognized as it is today, and HPA and the founders of the HPA Awards Committee (Carolyn Giardina and Mark Chiolis) hoped to change that. The awards launched with multiple categories, including creative, Lifetime Achievement and Engineering Excellence.For nearly 20 years, HPA's Engineering Excellence awards have honored groundbreaking achievements and innovations in the media and entertainment industry. Taking home an Engineering Excellence award is a testament to a winner's pioneering spirit, and a benchmark for excellence, inspiring others in the industry to strive for innovation and improvement.
Beyond the trophy and the gala, an HPA Engineering Excellence award confers industry-wide recognition and respect. It can propel companies into the limelight, attracting attention from potential clients, collaborators, and partners. For companies and individuals alike, winning this award is not just an honor; it's a milestone that marks their contributions to shaping the future of entertainment.
Looking through a list of winners reveals a timeline of revolution and change in our industry. The winning technologies have often set new standards, paving the way for the future and highlighting trends and directions in technology.
In a press release recognizing the company's first win in 2012, Cinnafilm said The HPA is comprised of engineers, executives and creative post production professionals who understand and use technology to achieve incredible results that captivate a global audience. Winning the Engineering Excellence Award is significant because it is determined by professionals that use the best technologies in the world every day. The company has won three Engineering Excellence awards.
In 2006, the HPA Award(s) for Engineering Excellence were awarded to Digital Vision (for DVO Image Processing Software), MTI Film (for Control Dailies), and Sony (for HDCAM SR). Those are a bit of a time capsule but also a reverent look at how technology builds on itself and evolves. Larry Chernoff, CEO of MTI commented, Acknowledging the work that engineers dedicate themselves to doing in order to bring a product to market is rarely given. Other than market acceptance, colleague acceptance and recognition by the HPA is indeed a rich reward for all the effort.
Across a wide array of stunning winners, a few stick out:
ARRI Alexa, ATMOS, BMD Resolve, Colorfront Color Engine, Foundry's NUKE, MoSys, UNREAL Engine RED Monstro, SGO Mistika and many more.
Submissions will be solicited on April 14, and will be accepted until June 14, 2024. Joachim Zell, Chair of the engineering award said It's an amazing way to show off your hard work. I don't think there are other opportunities like this, where you present to an amazing panel of judges from around the world. Every year, I am really excited to see what is submitted. You really do need to submit!
The winners of the HPA Award for Engineering Excellence, from 2006 to 2023 are:
2006
Digital Vision (for DVO Image Processing Software), MTI Film (for Control Dailies), and Sony (for HDCAM SR).
2007
Quantel (Tom McGowan, Steve Owen, James Cain and Eric Thorne) Genetic Engineering
2008
Quantel Pablo Stereoscopic 3D
FastSoft E Series Internet Accelerator
Panasonic AVC-Inttra 100 Video Codec
2009
DVS Digital Video Systems - Clipster
Signiant Content Distribution Management (CDM) Software
Two Corporation OB-1 Uncompressed Digital Recorder
2010
Arnold + Richter Cine Technik (ARRI) - ALEXA
Cine-tal Davio Processor
Digital Vision Open EXR workflow
2011
Dolby Professional Reference Monitor
Sony OLED Monitor
IBM Linear Tape File System
Lightcraft Previzion
2012
Cinnafilm Tachyon
Crossroads Systems - StrongBox
Dolby Laboratories Dolby Atmos
Sony Electronics F65 Camera
2013
DTS, Inc. - MDA
NVIDIA NVIDIA GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA)
Sony Pictures Imageworks and The Foundry - FLIX
Telestream 16 bit 4:4:4:4 Transcoding Technology
2014
MACOM 12G-SDI Chipset
NVIDIA NVIDIA VCA
Wohler/Cinnafilm Joint Venture Tachyon Wormhole
2015
Aspera: FASPStream
Grass Valley: GV Node Real Time IP Processing and Edge Routing Platform
RealD: Ultimate Screen
SGO: Mistika
2017
Colorfront Colorfront Engine
Dolby Dolby Vision Post-Production Tools
RED Digital Cinema WEAPON 8K Vista Vision
SGO Mistika VR
Blackmagic Design - DaVinci Resolve 15
2018
Canon - Visual and Technical Monitoring of HDR Images
Cinnafilm, Inc. - PixelStrings
IBM Aspera & Telestream - Telestream Vantage with Lightspeed Live Capture powered by Aspera
2019
Adobe - Content-Aware Fill for Video in Adobe After Effects
Epic Games - Unreal Engine 4
Pixelworks - TrueCut Motion
Portrait Displays, Inc. and LG Electronics - CalMAN LUT Based Auto-Calibration Integration with LG OLED TVs
2020
EIZO - Prominence CG3146 31.1
Eluvio - Eluvio Content Fabric
Moxion - Immediates
Carl Zeiss SBE - eXtended Data - Lens Metadata Technology
2021
ArchPlatform Technologies - ArchPlatform
AutoDesk - OpenColorIO v2
Foundry - Nuke
Mo-Sys Engineering - NearTime
2022
Amazon Web Services - Color in the Cloud
Arri - REVEAL Color Science
LG Electronics - LG UltraFine Pro OLED Monitor
Mo-Sys Engineering - LED Key
2023
Adobe - Adobe Premiere Pro Text-Based Editing
Flanders Scientific - XMP550
Kino Flo - Mimik 120
For a complete list of ALL HPA Award winners, visit HPAonline.
