The Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers has awarded Bruce Devlin, Chief Technology Officer of AmberFin and co-author of the MXF specification, the David Sarnoff Gold Medal Award, writes David Fox.
The award was presented by SMPTE’s President, Peter Ludé, at the Society’s Honors and Awards Ceremony, in Hollywood, during the SMPTE Technical Conference and Expo. Established by SMPTE in 1950, the David Sarnoff Gold Medal Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques or equipment that have contributed to the improvement of the engineering phases of television technology.
This year, a committee of five SMPTE members selected Devlin for his significant contribution to MXF. The committee’s official citation stated: “The recipient of the 2011 David Sarnoff Medal is Bruce Devlin for his leadership of and contributions to the development and adoption of SMPTE’s MXF standards.”
Receiving the award, Devlin commented: “I am truly honoured to receive the 2011 David Sarnoff Medal. When I look at the names of previous recipients of this medal, I am humbled that my name should be included alongside those who have made such a significant and continuous contribution to the broadcast and film industries. It is clear that this award recognises individuals who have moved the industry forwards and I can only hope that my contribution along with the support of a truly international team of MXF experts will help continue that progress.
“It seems that we live in an era where new media devices are introduced on an almost weekly basis. The resulting, inexorable move to IT methods and file-based working raises daily challenges to keep all of those devices illuminated with compelling content while keeping costs under control. SMPTE’s MXF format is a key component in solving those challenges and I am grateful to the organisation to have had the opportunity to move that technology forwards,” he said.
Devlin has worked in the media industry for 25 years, in which he has designed RF antennas, circuit boards, FPGAs, ASICs, hardware systems, video algorithms, compression algorithms, software applications, software systems and media workflows. He has worked for the BBC, Thomson, Snell & Wilcox and is currently the CTO at AmberFin, leading its technology strategy and helping media organizations improve their business efficiency by migrating to file based working.
Although a technologist at heart, Devlin never forgets that profitable, successful media companies that show great content, pay for all the technological devices that he invents.
To this end he has recently become the star of Bruce’s Shorts (pictured), a series of short videos and webinars where he tries to help broadcasters to solve their workflow problems.
