BBC Sweeps Royal Television Society's Technology Awards

The BBC has won six of the eight categories in the Royal Television Society's Technology Awards:

• Chris Clarke of BBC Research & Development received the RTS's Lifetime Achievement award. The award recognized his work on digital PAL decoding and TV standards conversion in the 1970's, which made possible international agreement on digital video standards. It also recognized work he did in the 1990's, when he led the team that created the technical standards for the first digital terrestrial television transmitter and receiver, and which led to the digital wireless cameras the BBC uses for its news and sports coverage. Although Clark has spent his 30-year career in a backroom capacity, his work is widely recognized by his fellow technologists in the digital TV field. The press release that the BBC issued announcing his award included prepared statements from David Wood, head of new technology at the European Broadcasting Union, and from Professor Ulrich Reimers, chair of the Technical Module of the DVB project: "Without Chris Clarke's contribution there would be no ITU Rec 601, the cornerstone of digital television throughout the world," Wood's statement read. "His conclusion that a PAL signal could be decoded by any sampling frequency, backed up by thorough studies, was the key to unlock the agreement on component coding, which led to the worldwide standard Rec 601." "The very timely completion of the BBC DVB-T modem, and its subsequent successful testing, were extremely important to the rapid acceptance of the DVB-T standard," Reimers' statement read. "This enormous achievement was largely a result of the work of Chris Clarke, who not only led the modem team at BBC R&D but also did much of the design work himself."
• The technical team behind the BBC Two series, "Coast," received the Technology in Content Delivery and Technology in Consumer Electronics awards for its Coast Mobile service, which allowed users to access audio and video material, using symbols captured by a mobile phone camera (see [itvt] Issue 6.12 Part 3).
• BBC Research & Development received the Research and Development Team award for its various contributions to the interactive TV field. The RTS issued a statement explaining why it decided to recognize BBC R&D with the award: "The development of interactive services has moved us into an era of highly complex projects," the statement read. "While many companies have contributed to this success, the judges were particularly impressed by one laboratory's leading contribution in the interactive field, in developing the technology to enable interactive services to work equally effectively on the terrestrial, satellite and cable platforms. The team also played a leading role in the development of the UK profile of MHEG, which has been key to the success of interactive services on the terrestrial platform, and has paved the way for the volume and breadth of interactive programming now available to the public. This team is to be congratulated on a sustained, highly professional approach in the development of these services."
• In addition, the BBC's use of mobile phones in the news-gathering process was recognized with an award for Technology in Content Creation, Capture or Restoration; and the BBC's General Election Results program was recognized with a Judges' Award for advancing the way information is presented to viewers.

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