SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition to Highlight Technologies Fueling the Future of Motion Imaging October Event to Feature World-Class Lineup of Technical Sessions, Advanced Technology Exhibitions, and Popular Networking Events
LOS ANGELES and WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Sept. 6, 2018 - SMPTE , the organization whose standards work has supported more than a century of advances in entertainment technology and whose membership spans the globe, today announced the full conference program for the SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition (SMPTE 2018). SMPTE 2018 will be held Oct. 23-25 at an all-new location: the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles. The SMPTE 2018 Symposium on Oct. 22 will precede the Societys annual conference, which is recognized as the worlds premier forum for the exploration of media and entertainment technology.
Co-chairs of the SMPTE 2018 technical conference program committee are SMPTE Fellows Thomas Edwards, vice president of engineering and development at Fox, and SMPTE Education Director Sara J. Kudrle, product marketing manager for playout at Imagine Communications. The technical conference program will include 78 paper presentations spread over three days - this year in up to three concurrent sessions rather than just two.
Every year, the SMPTE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition delivers an unprecedented lineup of sessions and popular networking events. Presenters and attendees alike are world-renowned technology thought leaders, said SMPTE Education Vice President Richard Welsh, CEO and co-founder of Sundog Media Toolkit. With a record number of paper proposals submitted this year, SMPTE 2018 will be better than ever - promising unparalleled opportunities for professional development, relationship-building, and mind-sharing. The conference is a must-attend for anyone working on the technical side of media and entertainment and looking to future-proof their organization and career.
Preconference Events on Oct. 22
On Monday, Oct. 22, the conference and exhibition will be preceded by the daylong SMPTE 2018 Symposium - Driving the Entertainment Revolution: Autonomous Cars, Machine Intelligence, and Mixed Reality. Chaired by Michael Zink, vice president of technology at Warner Bros., the Symposium will provide attendees with a fresh and uniquely rich perspective on the future of entertainment experiences. Intel Corporation Automated Driving Group Senior Vice President Douglas Davis will present the keynote, titled Safety Today for the Autonomous Tomorrow. Davis will discuss the potential of autonomous vehicles in saving lives by reducing or eliminating human error on the roads. He also will consider how consumers embrace of autonomous vehicles may potentially provide a massive new passenger economy and, in turn, propel a transformation that impacts a variety of industries. Further Symposium details and registration information are available at www.smpte2018.org/symposium.html.
The annual Women in Technology Luncheon, presented by SMPTE and the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA), will also take place Oct. 22. Luncheon tickets are available separately or as an add-on to SMPTE 2018 conference registration. Lunch will also be provided for Symposium attendees who do not attend the Women in Technology Luncheon. Mondays events will conclude with an Evening Luau reception. The Luau is included in packages that include Symposium registration, and tickets may also be purchased separately as an add-on to other registration types.
Overview of Technical Sessions
Papers presented over the three-day SMPTE 2018 conference will address topics including professional media networking; Better Pixels Projects; managing complex, seemingly unmanageable workflows; evaluating image quality for brighter displays, immersive visual experiences and high-dynamic-range (HDR); AI algorithms and why they will become a must for any content producer and provider; the evolution of streaming services; the cloud; the metamorphosis of todays encoding technologies; advances in display technologies; and taming metadata by harnessing the power of media asset management (MAM).
The three-part session Better Pixels, chaired by Sally Hattori of Twentieth Century Fox Film and David Long of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), will go beyond physics and engineering to consider the holistic quality of experience for the human observer adequately. Presentations will include HDR Image Analysis for Better Storytelling, Production and Distribution Technologies for a Better Pixel Ecosystem, and Image Processing Technologies for Better Pixels. Presenters will include Andrew Cotton and Simon Thompson of the BBC, JD Vandenberg of The Walt Disney Studios, and Edward G. Callway of AMD.
Another three-part session, Artificial Intelligence, will ask the question, Is AI more than automation in our industry? Chaired by Yvonne Thomas of Arvato Systems, the session will explain why AI algorithms will become a must for any content producer and provider and an integrated component in our system landscapes. Presentations will offer practical examples of AIs use in the media industry and will show how to create and develop machine-learning practices to ensure the highest-quality metadata. Presenters will include Ray Thompson of Avid, Thomas Gunkel of Skyline Communications, and Christopher Witmayer of NASCAR.
Chaired by Mark Zorn of HBO USA, the companion sessions Will Blockchain Solve All Our Problems in M&E? and Exploring Security and Blockchain in New Media Space will provide use cases exploring whether there is a practical use for blockchain in media and entertainment and if operators can embed security technologies that will protect against new threats. Presenters will include Leigh Whitcomb of Imagine Communications, Shruti Tripathi of Techtel, and Eric Dieh
