Day 1 Keynote: Tab Butler
Dir Media Management & Post-Production, Major League Baseball Network
Tab Butler joined the Major League Baseball Network in June of 2008 as part of the Engineering and IT Department, chartered with the facility build-out and the January 1, 2009 MLB Network launch. Currently, Tab manages the Media Management team for the MLB Network, and oversees MLB Network Post Production.
Tab presents his unique approach to problem solving and convergence within the broadcast media space, with over 20 years of experience in Network TV Broadcast Operations, and 11 years of Sales and Marketing Management with IT and Broadcast manufactures. He specialized in sales to Broadcast Networks, Station Groups, Government, and Global 2000 clients. Tab spent 18 years at the NBC Network. He worked for NBC News, NBC Sports, and NBC Operations and Technical Services, and received two Emmy Awards while at NBC, and one Emmy Award while at MLB Network.
While in manufacturing, Tab has worked in various capacities for Tektronix (Grass Valley Group), EMC, VideoBank, SeaChange International, and IBRIX.
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Day 2 Keynote: David Mazza
SVP-Engineering, Olympics, NBC Universal
A 30-year veteran of the broadcast industry, David Mazza was named Senior Vice President, Engineering for NBC’s Olympics Division in 2002. Mazza oversees the engineering group, which is charged with designing, building and operating a re-useable multi-games infrastructure for NBC’s coverage of the seven consecutive Olympic Games beginning in Sydney 2000 and continuing through the year 2012.
Mazza joined NBC in 1994 as Director of Engineering and led the technical design, building and operation of NBC’s International Broadcast Center for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. This involved developing extensive new technology and systems for the “Virtual IBC” which allowed part of the broadcast center to be located in New York and part in Atlanta. Other notable NBC Olympic engineering achievements - The Sydney 2000 Games marked the first appearance of some very innovative new transportable broadcast equipment systems. This re-useable infrastructure will make its 6th appearance in the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics in February of 2010. The Salt Lake City 2002 Games marked the beginning of NBC’s limited HD coverage of the games. The Athens 2004 Games marked a threefold increase in the number of hours of coverage and the number of network platforms. The NBC’s Olympic facilities were partially converted to HD for the Torino 2006 Winter Games, and converted in full for the Beijing 2008 Summer Games. Beijing 2008 also required an elaborate lash-up between the New York and Beijing plants in order to allow the Cable production to be done from home along with the debut of the huge amount of New Media content for a variety of new distribution platforms.
Mazza’s technical work has spanned the worlds of sports, entertainment, and news productions working on projects such as Wimbledon from 1982 through 1994; several Superbowls; Championship Boxing on HBO; NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs and Finals from 1985 through 1993; the MTV Video Music Awards; and ten Olympic Games. During this period Mazza earned many awards including 17 Emmys for the Olympics from 1984 through 2010, several Monitor, ACE, and BDA awards. Mazza was awarded the 2006 GE Edison Award for technical innovation.
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Harry Aine
President & CEO, SAN Solutions
Aine is recognized as an expert in the design, development, and delivery of high-performance SANs, distributed file systems, and other advanced storage and processing solutions for the broadcast and media industries. Prior to founding SAN Solutions, he served as product manager and business development manager at MountainGate, creating the CentraVision product line that eventually became Quantum’s StorNext. He earlier was vice president at Recognition Concepts Inc. (RCI), where he oversaw development of real-time video image processing systems and video disk recorders.
Over his career Aine has chaired the Fibre Channel Loop Community (FCLC), Fibre Channel Associations (FCA), and Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA). He also was instrumental in the formation of the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) working group for the management of Fibre Channel technology and helped to marry that organization with the ANSI T11 Fibre Channel Standards body.
Aine holds BA in physics and management science from the University of California, San Diego.
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Brian Campanotti, P. Eng.
Chief Technology Officer, Front Porch Digital Inc.
Campanotti is Chief Technology Officer at Front Porch Digital responsible for leading industry advancement in global broadcast content storage management, file-based workflows, and intelligent content management. He is active in a wide range of industry groups including the SMPTE AXF committee.
Mr. Campanotti started his career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Toronto, Canada as a systems engineer. During his tenure, he was a member of an Emmy award-winning team for leadership in serial digital video technology implementations. He was the founder of Masstech Group and has been with Front Porch Digital for six years.
Mr. Campanotti is an Electrical Engineering graduate from the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada.
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Richard Chernock
Chief Technology Officer, Triveni Digital, Inc., Princeton Junction, NJ
Dr. Chernock is currently Chief Technology Officer at Triveni Digital – an LG
Electronics Company. In that position, he is developing strategic directions for
monitoring, content distribution and metadata management for emerging digital
television systems and infrastructures. Previously, he was a Research Staff Member at
IBM Research, investigating digital broadcast technologies.
Dr. Chernock is active in many of the ATSC and SCTE standards committees, particularly in the areas of mobileDTV, monitoring, metadata, and data broadcast. He is vice-chair of the Technology Standards Group (TSG) and chairing the Non-Real-Time Services and Mobile/Handheld management layer activities within ATSC. He is a major participant in the SCTE HMS video monitoring activity. He is also the Distinguished Lecturer Chair for IEEE BTS.
In another life, he used transmission electron microscopy to study materials characteristics for advanced ceramics packaging and semiconductor technology at IBM. His ScD was from MIT in the field of nuclear materials engineering.
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Bruce Devlin MA C.Eng MIEE.
Chief Technology Officer, AmberFin
Bruce graduated from Queens' College Cambridge in 1986 and has been working in the broadcast industry ever since. He joined the BBC Research Department working on Radio-Camera systems before moving to France where he worked on sub-band and MPEG coding for Thomson. He joined Snell & Wilcox in 1993 where he started the company's work on compression coding. Bruce joined AmberFin, the software division of Snell & Wilcox in 2008 where he guides the company on file, workflow, and systems issues. Bruce holds several patents in the field of compression and files. He has written international standards and contributed to books on MPEG and File Formats. He is co-author of the MXF File Format Specification and an active contributor to the work of the SMPTE and the AMWA. Bruce is a fellow SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers).
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Joey Faust
Consultant, National TeleConsultants, Inc.
Faust advises clients on process and technology analysis, workflow optimization and modeling, and software systems design. He is a specialist in Web Services and related technology as well as Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and has presented on these and other topics at NAB, SMPTE, Digital Hollywood, and StorageVisions. He is the co-author of the 2008 book "The Service-Oriented Media Enterprise: SOA, BPM, and Web Services in Professional Media Systems" from Focal Press.
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Fred Fourcher
CEO, Bitcentral
Mr. Fourcher is a broadcast industry veteran and digital technology evangelist. With a background in international satellite communication networks, he now focuses on non-proprietary, file-based delivery to speed content from acquisition to air and beyond. He understands the demands of the market and time pressures faced by news producers. Attendees will learn how to implement a more efficient workflow in order to save time and gain a competitive edge.
Mr. Fourcher is currently the CEO of Bitcentral, the award-winning innovator of news content production and distribution solutions. Bitcentral is legendary for the efficiency of their workflows and has been trusted with deployments at major content producers such as CNN, NBC, CBS as well as many of the leading TV stations groups. The company’s mission is transforming news organizations and maximizing the value of their creative assets.
Mr. Fourcher is a popular broadcast industry speaker at events such as SMPTE, NAB, the NAB Futures Summit, and most recently, Digital Strategies for Broadcasting.
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Greg Funk, RCDD
Training & Technical Support Coordinator - IBDN Services, Belden
Funk has 16 years with Belden in various capacities, beginning as a contracted IBDN Instructor, then Sales Engineer, and Field Sales Datacomm Manager before assuming his current position. In addition to his roles in provision of technical support, sales support, and training he manages development of all BICSI-accredited courses offered by the IBDN Training Center.
Greg began his career with the State of Florida, holding several positions including Computer Operations Specialist, Computer Programmer Analyst, and Distributed Computer Systems Analyst, before entering the private sector as Training Division Manager for a cabling contractor. He resides in Pensacola, Florida.
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Bob Hildeman
Co-founder, Streambox, Inc.
Hildeman co-founded Streambox, Inc. in 1999 with a simple vision: to help realize streaming media’s potential to transform communities, governments, broadcasters, and the everyday lives of citizens. Today, Streambox is a leading provider of award-winning low bandwidth video solutions, with a family of unique software and hardware products that leverage IP networks as a cost-effective, reliable, and nearly ubiquitous means of acquiring and transporting video. The Streambox® Live™ service is a cloud-based, many-to-many video broadcasting service targeted to domestic and global media companies, government, NGO’s, military organizations, and enterprise customers worldwide.
A 20-year veteran of the software industry, Hildeman draws on a solid background in business management and development, marketing and sales, and entrepreneurial know-how to manage corporate vision and strategic direction at Streambox. Prior to co-founding Streambox, Hildeman co-founded several software companies where he developed and directed successful go-to-market strategies that resulted in many key wins from Fortune 500 companies and international customers. Hildeman holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Washington, and was formerly a registered architect.
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Al Kovalick
Strategist & Fellow, Avid
Kovalick has worked in the field of hybrid AV/IT systems for the past 18 years. Previously, he was a digital systems designer and technical strategist for Hewlett-Packard. While at HP, he was a principal researcher and architect for a new product-class of signal synthesizer. Additionally, he was the principal architect of HP’s first VOD server. Following HP, from 1999 to 2004, he was the CTO of the Broadcast Products Division at Pinnacle Systems. Currently, he is with Avid Technology and serves as an Enterprise Strategist and Fellow.
Al is an active speaker, educator, author and participant with industry bodies including SMPTE and AMWA. He has presented over 50 papers at industry conferences worldwide and holds 18 US and foreign patents. In 2009 Al was awarded the David Sarnoff Gold Medal for "Meritorious Achievement in Television Engineering" from SMPTE. Al has a BSEE degree from San Jose State University and MSEE degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
He is a life member of Tau Beta Pi, IEEE member and a SMPTE Fellow.
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Gary Olson
President, VOD Limited
Olson is a media technology and business advisor specializing in the transition of traditional media workflows and business processes. His focus is the adaptation of organizational structure, staffing models and workflows to implement digital media technology. Gary’s has substantial experience working with project sponsors and stakeholders to help them understand the changes associated with digital media platforms and file-based workflows. Gary is a recognized industry leader with practical experience in the analysis, selection, and uses of technology and as an innovator in media technologies and broadcast design. He holds a US Patent in streaming media automation and distribution.
Gary’s advises on the best use of technology in the migration and transition from traditional media technology to digital platforms in broadcast, broadband, wireless, portable multimedia and On-Demand media and information technology.
Gary assisted the United Nations as part of their initiative for the Media Asset Management and Broadcast Automation System. He helped analyze the existing technical operations, workflows and processes to develop a requirement set that would be a foundation for an RFP process. The work included preliminary analysis of the technical operations and preliminary findings for some organizational changes.
Working with AARP, Gary analyzed their workflows and business process to define the requirements and design a Media Asset Management environment integrating multiple business units. The engagement included defining new workflows and modifying organizational and staffing models to adapt to the new workflows.
For CONCACAF (the Confederation of North, Central Americas and Caribbean Association Football) Gary designed and launched one of the first file-based 1080i High Definition digital media production facilities. The facility is designed to produce content for Web Stream, Web On-Demand, IPTV, VOD, Mobile Wireless and Portable Multimedia Devices. Digital Asset Management is a key element to a file-based production center. Gary implemented a new enterprise network architecture which included unified messaging and hybrid IP & VOIP voice systems.
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John Pallet
Sr. Product Manager, Telestream
John Pallet has 12 years of experience developing and managing computer graphics and digital media software applications for entertainment, CAD/CAM, and 3D design applications. At Telestream, John is responsible for managing software products with a particular focus on traditional and new media multiplatform workflow automation solutions for media/entertainment and enterprise markets. John is a frequent speaker at NAB Technical Presentations and SMPTE meetings. He holds an M.B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
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Robert Robinson
Marketing Manager for Servers and Digital Production, Americas, Grass Valley
Starting in 1998, Robinson has been involved in the design and implementation of networked news and production workflow systems. For ten years prior to that he worked in Hollywood, California editing television series, movies of the week and miniseries. During that time he also trained over 400 film editors on non-linear editing systems including the Montage Picture Processor and Avid Media Composer.
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Paul Turner
VP of Broadcast Market Development, Omneon
Turner represents Omneon on several industry bodies, and advises customers and potential customers on file based workflows. Mr. Turner brings with him over 30 years of experience in the broadcasting industry in Europe and the USA, starting his career as an engineer at the BBC in 1980. Since then he has held Engineering and Senior Management positions both in the USA and the U.K at the Grass Valley Group, where he was responsible for the design, development, definition and marketing of many of Grass Valley’s Mixers, DVEs, keying technologies and graphics devices. After leaving GVG, he worked in Product Management and Product Marketing roles at several other broadcast manufacturers, including Abekas Video Systems, Scitex Digital Video, Sony Electronics and Pinnacle Systems, where he held the position of Director of Product Marketing for their Storage, Switcher, DVE and Character Generator product lines. Mr Turner is a member of the Board of Directors for the Advanced Media Workflow Association, where he chairs the association’s business steering committee. A SMPTE member, he has published over a dozen technical papers on a variety of industry topics.
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Robin Wilson
VP of Business Development, Nagravision
Robin has spent over 25 years in technical , marketing and founding roles for European and US companies including NBC, BBC, Grass Valley Group, DiviCom/Harmonic and Modulus Video. Robin has participated and presented in many industry bodies, forums and conferences including SMPTE, EBU, IBC, ATIS, IEEE and NATAS. Robin graduated with a BSc. degree in Applied Physics (EE) from Dundee University, Scotland, and holds a watermarking patent.
