The Bill Lovell Memorial Lectures

The Bill Lovell Lecture is an annual event for SMPTE UK, featuring individuals who have made a significant contribution to the media industry, and with an interesting story to tell.

Below are the videos of all the lectures. Watch and enjoy!

2014 - Roderick Snell

What drives an inventor and visionary? Roderick Snell looks back to childhood passions, and the many great influencers –including Bill Lovell – that he has worked with and been inspired by. How does he see the industry today? Where is it headed? What lessons have been learned? And what is the best way forward for the moving image and for European industry?

In 1973 Roderick Snell founded Snell & Wilcox - a two-man team pushing the boundaries of the analogue TV technology of the day. The company somehow survived the troubled 70s then exploded into growth during the 80s and 90s, at the leading edge of innovation in the fields of digital standards conversion, HDTV and image processing – ultimately winning 9 Queens Awards for Technology and Export growth, as well as 4 Emmys. Roderick’s personal mission has not only been to enhance the quality and availability of the moving image, but also to defend and support UK industry, R&D and the creative synergies between art and technology… not to forget his passion for helicopters!

A Life Fellow and a staunch supporter of the SMPTE, Roderick served as Governor and was awarded the SMPTE Progress Medal for his contributions to the art and science of television. More recently his Company played a key role in the development and promotion of digital cinema in the UK and Europe.

2015 - John Ive

2016 - Peter Owen

Video to be shared shortly

2017 - Peter Weitzel

Presented by former UK Section Secretary/Treasurer Peter Weitzel.

2018 - Simon Fell

The SMPTE UK Section Held the 2018 Bill Lovell Memorial Lecture at Sky on Wednesday, 7 November. This is an opportunity to hear about the past and the evolution of broadcast and online from someone who’s spent a lifetime in the industry.

Simon Fell began his career in the analogue world launching several ITV regions and the transformation to digital before becoming the Director of Future Technologies – A lot of stories detailing the evolution of ITV. After a brief spell as CTO at Heathrow Airport, he became the Director of Tech and Innovation at the European Broadcast Union – overseeing the digital evolution across Europe.

2019 - Bruce Devlin

"Using a unicycle, some duct tape, and some Python to excel in Media Technology"

The 2019 Bill Lovell Memorial Lecture was held at NBCUniversal, Central Saint Giles on Tuesday, 29th October and featured stories about the evolution of media technology from hardware to cloud by Bruce Devlin, the current SMPTE Standards Vice President. Bruce Devlin aka Mr MXF began his engineering career at GEC Large Machines and then jumped into media technology journey at the BBC. He has dabbled in mechanical design, power electronics, ASIC design, FPGA design, RF antenna design, Mainframe programming, embedded programming, hardware architecture, software architecture, system architecture, cloud computing, security, and standards.

He continues to be amazed that people trust him to run the Standards Pillar of SMPTE as a volunteer and he has some strong opinions on how the technology supply chain must adapt to react to the consolidation and continued change we are seeing in delivery of audiovisual content to the consumer.

He has a strong belief that if you're not enjoying something then you shouldn't be doing it.

2021 - Prinyar Boon

Over 50 SMPTE members and friends were welcomed to the DTG offices in Vauxhall for the Bill Lovell 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!

Thanks once again to our sponsors for this evening: The DTG for the ample refreshments!

2022 - Polly Hickling

Video to be shared shortly

2023 - Andy Beale

Please see the article about this event on the 2023 events page:

https://www.smpte.org/sections/united-kingdom/2023

2024 - Chris Johns

Video to be shared shortly