ATSC Awards Highest Technical Honor To Samsung’s Lim, Bestows Richer Industry Leadership Medal To Sony Electronics

The Advanced Television Systems Committee is awarding its highest technical honor, the 2022 Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award, to Dr. Youngkwon Lim, principal research engineer at Samsung Electronics. ATSC also presented the Mark Richer Industry Leadership Medal to Sony Electronics for leadership in deployment of ATSC 3.0 technology.

Congratulating the honorees during this year’s NextGen Broadcast Conference last week, ATSC President Madeleine Noland said: “Dr. Lim manages the work of Specialist Group TG3/S33 in a quick professional manner, allowing the industry to move forward apace. With more than two dozen patents to his name, his valuable knowledge has been instrumental in helping ATSC develop cutting-edge signaling solutions and more.”

Noland also recognized Sony Electronics for their leadership in the deployment of ATSC 3.0, as it incorporates the ATSC 3.0 electronics into all its consumer TV models on the market in the United States. “Sony’s exceptional work on ATSC 3.0 development and implementation stand out in our industry and supports the successful rollout of NEXTGEN TV across the country,” she said.

Richer Industry Leadership Medal

Named for the legendary former ATSC president who led the organization for two decades spanning both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0, the Mark Richer Industry Leadership Medal recognizes an individual or team that demonstrates exemplary leadership in advancing the mission of ATSC and epitomizes the vision, tenacity and leadership qualities that were the hallmark of his leadership.

From left: ATSC Board President Richard Friedel, ATSC President Madeleine Noland, ATSC President Emeritus Mark Richer and Mike Nejat, Luke Fay and Adam Goldberg from Sony Electronics.

Noland said: “Recognizing that Sony is one of three television manufacturers that have made substantial contributions, Sony is the first to integrate ATSC 3.0 into every new Sony television model for the U.S. market. This development was instrumental in driving 2021 U.S. television industry sales to exceed initial sales estimates by nearly 300%.

“Sony’s commitment to include 3.0 across the full product line sends an incredibly positive message to the broadcast industry and is helping to drive station launches. And Sony is not resting on this achievement. It is continually developing its television platform along with new capabilities for mobile reception and the automotive industry. ATSC further recognizes and deeply appreciates Sony’s Luke Fay’s exemplary and continuing leadership as Technology Group 3 Chair,” she added.

Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award

ATSC’s 2022 Lechner Award recipient Youngkwon Lim has led the ATSC TG3/S33 Specialist Group on Management and Protocols since it was organized in 2013.  TG3/S33 is the group responsible for the most technical documents of any specialist group in TG3 – 8 Standards and 3 Recommended Practices, including A/331 “Signaling, Delivery Synchronization, and Error Protection,” which is one of the most complex documents in the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards.

From left: ATSC President Madeleine Noland, President Emeritus Mark Richer and Dr. Youngkwon Lim of Samsung Electronics.

“ATSC 3.0 is a platform that can evolve over time, and S33 continues to play a pivotal role in ATSC, as the group tackles the myriad updates that improve A/331 and the other documents under its care. We are grateful for Young’s leadership in this critical piece of the ATSC 3.0 standard,” Noland added.

In addition to his service to ATSC, Lim has served as a convener of the MPEG Systems Working Group and is well known for his expertise in next-generation broadcasting and multimedia systems (protocol, delivery, streaming).

Lim has also been a key contributor to MPEG Media Transport (MMT) for delivery of multimedia over IP networks and digital broadcasting, and he has chaired multiple ad-hoc groups in MPEG, including Systems Technologies for Volumetric Media, Omnidirectional MediA Format (OMAF), Video Decoding Interface and more.

Noland said: “Dr. Lim’s experience in other Standards Development Organizations allows him to quickly align ATSC documents with external documents for a cohesive set of standards.  His valuable knowledge has helped ATSC move forward with signaling solutions, and I appreciate his expert guidance of TG3/S33.”

The Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award is bestowed once a year to an individual representative of the membership whose technical and leadership contributions to ATSC have been invaluable and exemplary. The title of the award recognizes the first recipient, the late Bernard Lechner, for his outstanding service to the ATSC.

Lechner was the retired staff vice president, advanced video systems of RCA Laboratories. His 30-year career at RCA covered all aspects of television and display research, including early work on home video tape recorders in the late 1950s, extensive development of flat-panel matrix displays in the 1960s including pioneering efforts on active-matrix liquid crystal displays, advanced two-way cable TV systems and pay TV systems in the early 1970s, electronic tuning systems and CCD comb-filters for TV receivers in the mid-1970s, automated broadcast cameras and CCD broadcast cameras in the late 1970s and early 1980s, to HDTV in the mid-1980s.