IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2016 - 30

is an IEEE Member and a principal
member of the technical staff and senior research advisor at Dolby Laboratories, Stockholm, Sweden.

2012: giSle BJøntegAArd, gAry J.
SullivAn, And thomAS wiegAnd
Gisle Bjøntegaard, Gary
J. Sullivan, and Thomas
Wiegand were leading
figures in the creation of
the ground-breaking
H.264/MPEG4-AVC
coding standard for the
gisle Bjøntegaard compression, transmission, recording, and storage of digital video. H.264/MPEG4-AVC
has impacted technology, ranging from
smartphones to Blu-ray disc players and
broadcast television. Released in May
2003, the new standard was a major
improvement over the previous H.262/
MPEG-2 video coding standard, with better compression capability and the flexibility to support a wide range of
platforms and applications, including
handheld mobile devices, Blu-ray players, Internet video streaming, and highdefinition TV (HDTV). Bjøntegaard
originated the proposal that became the
first reference model for the design of
the standard, and he continued to participate in driving further improvements in compression during the
standardization process. As chair of the
Joint Video Team, Sullivan wrote a significant portion of the standard and
managed the standardization process.
Wiegand served as an associate chair
of the committee, was responsible for
editing the evolving standard, and
made many technical contributions.
Bjøntegaard is currently a Cisco fellow
with Cisco Systems in Oslo, Norway.
An IEEE and SPIE fellow, Sullivan is
currently a video and image technology architect with Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington. Wiegand
is an IEEE Fellow and currently a professor and chair of the Image Communication Laboratory at the Berlin
Institute of Technology, Germany, and
joint head of the Image Processing
Department at the Fraunhofer Institute
for Telecom munications, Heinrich
Hertz Institute, Berlin, Germany.
30 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

juLY 2016

2011: JoAn l. mitChell
When you surf the
Internet, use a digital
camera, or print a color
image, you have benefited from Joan L.
Mitchell's contributions
to compression methods for faster printing and transmission of
image files. Mitchell was one of the key
contributors to the JPEG algorithm for
photographic image compression as
well as some of the Motion Picture
Expert Group (MPEG) standards for
video. Working at IBM with William B.
Pennebaker, Mitchell helped to finetune the JPEG standard into a medium
also practical for software. She served
as coeditor of the standard and helped
to define many of the extensions that
made it a flexible tool for image compression. Mitchell was also instrumental
in solving throughput bottlenecks
affecting IBM high-end printers,
enabling, for the first time, full-color
page decoding for JPEGs at rated
speeds. An IEEE Fellow, Mitchell
retired from InfoPrint Solutions Company, Boulder, Colorado, in 2009,
where she was an InfoPrint fellow.

2010: JAmeS BArton
The creator of the
modern digital video
recorder (DVR) and
CE electronics has
created life-changing
products for people
throughout the world.
The DVR has provided a whole new
television viewing experience to consumers who can now automatically
record their favorite television programming for later viewing at their convenience, record a full season, and pause
and replay live shows. As a connected
device, Barton's software-driven technology enables a living product whose
functionality evolves over time and has
set the standard for ease of use and reliability. He developed the first DVR ads,
which enable customers to interactively
click through a regular television ad for
more information, and integrated audience measurement capabilities, allowing
advertisers to receive direct feedback on

advertising effectiveness and understand
consumer-viewing behaviors. An IEEE
Member, Barton is currently the senior
vice president and chief technology officer at TiVo, Inc., Alviso, California.

2009: eugene J. polley
Eugene J. Polley's work
in wireless remote technology led to possibly
the greatest convenience
feature ever invented-
the wireless remote
control for television.
Polley ushered in the era of channel surfing
with the invention of the Flash-Matic
wireless remote in 1955, introduced by
Zenith Radio Corporation (now Zenith
Electronics LLC, a subsidiary of LG
Electronics). The device operated via
photocells placed in each corner of the
television screen, and the viewer used a
highly directional flashlight to turn the
picture and sound on or off or to change
the channel in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. His concepts were
the foundation of wireless remote technologies that followed. Today, virtually
all CE products-from plasma screens
to HDTVs, from digital video disk players to digital recorders-feature remotecontrol capability. Polley and fellow
remote-control pioneer Robert Adler
were recognized for their contributions
by the National Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences with an Emmy Award
in 1997. Currently a retired engineer,
Polley holds 18 patents.

2008: rAlph h. BAer
Ralph Henry Baer,
founder and chief
engineer of R.H. Baer
Consultants, is widel y k n ow n a s t h e
"father of the home
video game." Baer's
greatest successes have been in the
areas of interactive video entertainment, education, and training for both
consumer and military applications,
and in the creation of novel electronic
toys and games. A prolific inventor
with more than 150 granted patents, he
helped pioneer the popularity of singlechip, microprocessor-controlled games

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2016