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April 2009 MEETING
Who's Your Daddy? Television Engineering's Past, Present,
and Where We're Heading as Career Engineers
- John Hartwell, video engineer and San Francisco Section manager
- 6:00-7:30 PM No-host dinner and drinks
- 7:30 PM presentation
Program:
Increasingly stable and easy-to-use gear is reducing the need for installation and maintenance in call-letter, network, and facility engineering departments. The traditional role of the engineer continues to change as never before. We used to offer our employers the combined talents of repairman, inventor, and operator, but more and more, studio and transmission operations require only part-time babysitting. A generation ago -- that's only the 1980s! -- network and station engineers could still be called a special breed, while the IT drones downstairs handled exciting tasks such as payroll. Today, many IT guys handle ALL of video/audio origination, storage, and transmission tasks. In addition to the "computerization" of operations, the steady advance of video over Internet protocol is increasing the pressure on traditional, over-the-air RF broadcasting and even satellite/cablecasting, requiring RF and video experts to become IT specialists. Traditional video and broadcast engineering jobs disappearing? You bet. How can we future-proof ourselves and stay in the new game?
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY:
Our presenter this month, John Hartwell, offers his unique perspective based on his decades of dealing with engineering change. John began as a maintenance/production engineer at KQED in San Francisco, moving into video system design and integration with Peter Ludé in SF. With Pete and others, he co-founded Sony's System Integration Center in San Jose, where he spent 14 years managing projects, designing state-of-the-art facilities, and helping the Sony Technology Center in Atsugi, Japan, implement new technology. John has been a major contributor in the design of multi-channel delivery facilities for DIRECTV, Sky Broadcasting, and Verizon, and has worked with Wohler in developing audio/video monitoring products.
Please join us for a no-host ("Dutch treat") dinner and evening with John in the Garden Room at Coco's Restaurant in Sunnyvale. We'll start the meeting at 7:30, but if you haven't had a chance to eat by then, you're welcome to bring your food into the Garden Room and eat during the presentation.
Welcome:
SMPTEsf welcomes members and friends to attend without charge.Location:
Coco's Restaurant1206 Oakmead Parkway at Lawrence Expressway
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
(just south of US 101); free parking