United Kingdom 2021 meetings

SMPTE UK celebrates... Young Innovators and Emerging Talent

Over 70 SMPTE members and friends, including many students from Solent, Surrey and Ravensbourne Universities met at the fabulous Sky Central Cinema in Osterley on Thurs 9^th Dec 2021. We heard from three new entrants to the media industry, Emily Bergun, Jon Bourne and Dan Turner. Each delivered a lightening talk on their area of knowledge, followed by a Q&A - led by Polly Hickling.

• Emily talked about Virtual Machines and Cloud Services, and how she worked on building a Cloud Production Gallery at Sky, saving lots of CO2 in the process.
• Dan told us about loudness in theatrical mixing and how this contrasts with the regulated environment of home entertainment. He talked about the use of Dolby Fader 7 and posed the question about how this affects dialogue intelligibility in theatres.
• Jon talked about AI in Media Asset Management and bravely showed us a live demo of object detection. He then showed how he has successfully used face detection to do automatic video compilation.

The evening was a wonderful celebration of the talents of newcomers to our industry, but also served as a great networking opportunity with students and graduates mixing and chatting with SMPTE UK members from across the UK media industries.

Many thanks to our hosts, Sky for the ample refreshments!

Bill Lovell Memorial Lecture 2021: Prinyar Boon

On Thurs 11^th Nov 2021, over 50 SMPTE members and friends were welcomed to the DTG offices in Vauxhall for the Bill Lovel Memorial Lecture 2021. This event is a celebration of SMPTE members in a very social way and after having to miss the 2020 BLL we were really looking forward to getting together and the DTG made us very (very) welcome!

This year Prinyar Boon let us into his life of music, rock climbing, playing in a band, the early days of television, being shipwrecked and of course his passion for all that’s new and exciting in media technology today.

The trouble with each BLL is getting everyone in their seats and starting the event – why? Because our main attraction is always in demand and “doing the room” meeting and greeting - but we finally settled for a really good talk full of anecdote, personal thought and a lot of laughter!

We will say no more about Prin’s talk here – watch the video and enjoy.

Thanks once again to all who contributed to the event and Prin’s story and of course to our sponsors, the DTG for their support and “ample refreshments!”

SMPTE UK visits... BBC Research & Development

On Tues 19^th October 2021 we held a virtual section meeting. 85 of us, including SMPTE members from the US as well as a posse of media students from Solent university in the UK, joined researchers from the BBC as they presented their work on a number of exciting subjects looking to the future.

We covered several great topics:

• Communities of Practice, empowering the next generation of makers
• Channelling our inner Greta Thunberg to pursue Sustainability in Media
• How to make a Public Service Internet, that's not a dumpster fire of content
• Debunking Disinformation and Deepfakes by protecting trusted content

We also heard from the BBC Graduates, who each did a 60-second brief on the work they're involved in, and at the end of the meeting, we did a reverse Q&A, where the BBC Graduates asked the SMPTE board questions about the industry.

The meeting was recorded, and you can re-watch it here.

Please note the presentation on HLG has been removed from the recording due to content rights.

SMPTE UK – back together again after lockdown! So…what’s been going on in our industry over the past 18 months?

On Weds 22^nd September we held our first section meeting of 2021. 50 SMPTE members and friends gathered together in the iconic ‘Crown and Two Chairmen’ pub in London’s Soho for a wonderful evening of discussion and networking. We had an energetic and opinionated panel session featuring the following industry personalities:

• Chris Johns, Chief Engineer, Sky
• Bruce Devlin, Mr MXF
• Carys Hughes, Design Engineer, Sky
• Andy Quested, Chair ITU-R Working Party 6C
• Andy Beale, Head of Engineering and Innovation, BT Sport

The panel covered a lot of ground - bringing young people into the industry (and convincing their parents!), Rise, remote production, standards bodies and filibustering, Low Earth Orbit satellites, business models, 4K HDR versus HD HDR, iPhone Outside Broadcasts, and the next Big Thing: Object Based broadcasting.

Lots of discussion followed, but the big topic of the evening was clearly bringing young people into our industry. We all agreed there is a problem with attracting students to study broadcast engineering and to apply for jobs in our industry.

SMPTE UK has big plans for reinforcing links with universities and encouraging graduates. But as individuals we all have an opportunity to invest in inspiring young people to join our industry. Have a look at the Rise Up Academy, and help out!

Thanks to our sponsors for this evening: pixitmedia for the ample refreshments!

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