Bits by the Bay 2024

Produced by James Snyder.

In the U.S. we have been living with the 29.97fps video frame rate since the advent of color in 1953.  This legacy of NTSC analog television is so deeply ingrained in all aspects of broadcast and production that it's often forgotten or taken for granted.  Some equipment and production software may not even provide an option to use integer (30/60) rates for recording or display.

There are many factors behind the continued use of fractional frame rates (as well as interlaced video), but most have become irrelevant over time.  This session will review and continue the discussion of the problems created by these legacy concepts, and how they might finally be eliminated.

Presented by:
Merrill Weiss, Consultant, Electronic media technology & technology management.
Daniel J. White, Post Production Supervisor, Florentine Films
James Snyder, Consultant - Media engineering, workflows, preservation, archiving, standards, & metadata

S. Merrill Weiss is a consultant in electronic media technology and technology management. His career spans 54 years in electronic media and related fields, with 45 years in management and consulting. Prior to consulting, he served in most engineering capacities in radio and television stations and managed a large systems-engineering activity for a top-three U.S. television network.  Along the way, he made major conceptual and technical contributions to technologies such as the Serial Digital Interface (SDI), RS-422 machine control, High Definition Television (HDTV), and the Archive eXchange Format (AXF).  Weiss helped produce the tests that led to the first digital television standard, on which nearly all subsequent digital video standards are based, and he co-chaired the international task force that developed the foundation and roadmap on which both the exchange of program material as bitstreams and file-based workflows are based

Daniel J. White is the post-production supervisor for Florentine Films. He also oversees the restoration of Ken Burns' Florentine Films early collection of films. Dan has restored the films, The Civil War, Brooklyn Bridge, The Shakers, and Baseball and is currently restoring Statue of Liberty, Congress, Thomas Jefferson, and Horatio's Drive. He is passionate about film preservation and hopes to see all of Ken’s early films restored to the quality they deserve. Daniel started with Florentine Films in 2001 and has been an apprentice editor, assistant editor, editor, cinematographer, associate producer, restoration producer, and post-production supervisor. Daniel has also worked with Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions. Daniel lives in Keene, New Hampshire with his wife Jamie and two little ones.

James Snyder is an Emmy award winning digital media engineering, data and media archiving, preservation, production and project management specialist. His 36 years’ experience includes television, film, radio, internet and data technologies from traditional analog to cutting-edge digital audio, video, and data technologies. He was awarded a 2007 Technology Emmy for his work on the ATSC digital television standard. Snyder served as the Senior Systems Administrator for the Library of Congress’ National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) on the Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, VA. His responsibilities included all audio, video and film preservation and digitization technologies, including long-term planning and implementation, long-term data preservation planning and implementation, technology services to the United States Congress and organizations on Capitol Hill, as well as standards participation and technology liaison with media content producers worldwide. He has worked for many organizations in media, entertainment, and consulted on many types of projects with Sarnoff Corporation, Turner Engineering, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, the News Corporation, FedNet and multiple agencies of the U.S. Federal government 

An Emerging Technical Standard to Protect Against AI Fakes: C2PA

Produced by Mike Plamer.

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) is an open technical standard providing publishers, creators, and consumers the ability to trace the origin of different types of media.  It provides the technical means to declare where media was captured, by whom, by what device, geolocation information from the point of capture, and any production or distribution processes that may have been applied.  C2PA allows producers to lay claim to their video in a way that cannot be faked or modified.  This not only protects their brand against AI fakes, but also allows them to better manage and monetize their own content and archives.

Technically, C2PA defines a schema for describing provenance and specific assertions of fact.  It allows this description to be digitally signed and locked to the media file through the use of certificates and a hierarchy of certificate authorities – very similar to how internet domains are protected today by certificates.

Presented by: Mike Palmer, Andy Rosen

Mike Palmer is AVP of Advanced Technology/Media Management for Sinclair Broadcast, where his team's transformation-enabling media management and media pipeline services span over 200 distribution channels and media properties. Palmer joined Sinclair's Advanced Technology group in 2021 after more than 20 years as a leader in the design of commercial products and services for various broadcast and media vendors.

Palmer holds a BS in Broadcasting/Journalism from the University of Southern Colorado. Prior to working in the broadcast vendor space, Palmer worked in local station operations and news, as well as pioneering SNG and DBS businesses.

Palmer's work has been recognized with a national Technical Emmy, Broadcast & Cable's Technology Leadership Award, The Associated Press Oliver Gramling Award, and numerous product awards. He is also an active member of SMPTE, The National Press Club, and the NATAS/Emmy Technology Award Committee. 

Andy initially joined a SMPTE student chapter and he’s never left the industry. In the SMPTE Standards Community, Mr. Rosen contributes to several drafting groups and currently serves as the secretary to ST12-4, the UTC-Aligned Timecode update. In the Audio Engineering Society, Andy provides liaison services between the working group on Forensic Audio and both the JPEG Trust and its underlying Media Tokenization projects in ISO SC29. With a background in live news and broadcast post production, Andy’s always happy to share inventive papers on programmatic advertising, graphics display, closed captioning, stupid compression pet tricks and crypto compliance. Andy represents File.Baby consumer integrity subscriptions, Marquise Technologies’ Digital Cinema mastering workstations, and MetaGlue’s MXFplus libraries. Andy helps to maintain Oliver Morgan’s MXFplus libraries as the brightly polished gold standard by advancing forward-looking reference works such as the SMPTE Descriptive Metadata Scheme (DMS). To address the demand for content credentials, Andy seeks industry sponsorship of a proposed top-level SMPTE DMS Identity and Integrity project that will keep all the mission-critical tools of our world interoperable.

Mentorship in Media Engineering and Management

Presented by: Karl Kuhn, Industry Veteran, Sherwood Insights

Karl Kuhn founded Sherwood Insights L.L.C. to provide technology training, leadership coaching and mentoring for corporate clients and individuals looking to reach new levels of success. During his 50-year video career, Karl held various leadership positions at major providers of video technology.  At 6 pm, Karl will present on the value of personal coaching and mentoring as a means to accelerate career growth and foster life balance for individuals.  Coaching and mentoring works for corporate clients who want to invest in their high potential employees by grooming leadership and assisting with employee retention while providing a greater ROI.

Day-to-Day Operation in the Hybrid World of SDI and SMPTE 2110

Produced by Fred Willard.

This session walks through a typical day in the life of an engineer in managing quality and reliability in a hybrid SDI/2110 facility, which is where most of us will be the next few years. IP is just another I/O interface: It’s a way to get video, audio, and data to or from a switch. These presentations will discuss what operators and engineers need to know.