Immersive Cinema Pioneer Ravi Velhal Wins DEG’s Technology Achievement Award

By Pickle October 16, 2022

Ravi Velhal, Intel Corporation won the Technology Achievement Award at the DEG’s ( Digital Entertainment Group) Second annual Technology and Ops Awards in the Hollywood for his pioneering work on 8K Live-streaming of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games over the open internet from last summer. Along with Disney’s AL Rundle. DEG announced the winners of its TechOps Awards at a ceremony in Los Angeles on October 12.

“It is DEG’s pleasure to produce our second annual — and first in-person! — TechOps Awards for all these often-unsung innovators in our industry whose mission it is to enable and constantly improve content delivery to consumers in best quality when and where they want to enjoy it,” said Amy Jo Smith, DEG president and CEO.

DEG’s Technology Achievement Award honors adoption/leadership/engagement in the technology & operations function. Recipients will have demonstrated a technical achievement and significantly contributed to the realization of technological advancements. Ravi Velhal received this award for his pioneering work on Live-streaming Tokyo 2020 Olympics game in stunning 8K/60 FPS/HDR over the Open Internet, where he and his teams developed and deployed this technology by processing and streaming 5 Petabytes of Video which is considered as the “Future of Sports Broadcasting”

Ravi Velhal of Intel Corporation has been contributing to Media Technology industry for more than 25 years now and recognized as an Immersive Cinema Pioneer and has produced more than dozen Hollywood and global Immersive VR and volumetric projects including Spider-Man, Grease, FirstMan and Dunkirk in Virtual Reality. He initiated VR in Brazil, India and other countries worldwide and led CannesXR, part of Cannes Film Festival where LeMusk, A Cinematic Sensory Experience was premiered with A R Rahman.

Ravi was also the nominee for the DEG’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Besides Ravi, Michael Daruty, NBCUniversal, Yvette Barton, Warner Bros. Discovery were the nominees for the Life Time Achievement Award, which was conferred to Michael Daruty from NBC Universal.

DEG is the apex body for the Hollywood’s business of Home Entertainment with more than 70+ Hollywood and industry leading companies are its members. DEGs TechOps Awards are often for those unsung heroes and innovators in the industry whose mission is to enable and constantly improve content delivery to consumers in best quality when and where they enjoy it.

Presented by Dolby, DEG’s prestigious Lifetime Achievements Award honors and recognizes an individual or team that has demonstrated consistent results in technology leadership, technology achievement, or technology innovation.

DEG has enlisted a distinguished judging panel comprised of a cross-section of leaders representing entertainment technology to determine the award winners. Among other factors, the judging panel base its decision on the candidates’ contribution to a key goal or priority within the technology and operations function.

DEG’S COMPLETE WINNERS LIST 2022

Technology Leadership Award — Mark Sgriccia, Lionsgate

The award honors an individual or team that has demonstrated leadership, implementing something technically that had an impact on the business. Recipients have demonstrated leadership and significantly contributed to a recent project or other engagement within the last two years in the technology and operations function.

Best Multi-Company Team Collaboration Award — Warner Bros. Discovery Global Content Servicing and Solutions Team and Giant Interactive Client Services Team, Warner Bros. Discovery + Giant Interactive

The award honors cross-industry teams (representing two or more companies) who demonstrate excellence in collaboration, communication, and technical execution with an impact on operational efficiencies in order to achieve a common goal.

Technology Innovation Award — (two winners) Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution Single Ingest Pipeline Team, Disney, and Dmytro Bielievtsov, Grant Reaber and Alex Serdiuk, Respeecher

The award honors a team that identified a problem and created a novel solution.

Everyday Hero Award — (two winners) Yelena Makarczyk, Blu Digital Group, and Cassandra Moore, NBCUniversal

The award honors an individual who demonstrates an attitude of excellence, helps others, encourages teamwork, leads by example, and goes “above and beyond” the expectations of their job/duties to meet the needs of the industry while executing solutions to everyday challenges.

Technology Achievement Award Presented by Whip Media — (three winners) Al Rundle, Disney; Ravindra Velhal and Rick Hack, Intel; and Adriana Becerra, Tubi

The Technology Achievement Award honors adoption/leadership/engagement in the technology and operations function. Recipients have demonstrated a technical achievement and significantly contributed to the realization of technological advancements.

Localization Trailblazer Award — Teresa Phillips, Spherex

The award honors trailblazing companies, teams, or individuals who exemplify excellence in overseeing quality, localized content under tight deadlines using creative and operational groundbreaking strategies.

Lifetime Achievement Award Presented by Dolby — Mike Daruty, NBCUniversal

The award honors and recognizes an individual or team that has demonstrated consistent results in technology leadership, technology achievement, or technology innovation.