Speaker: Nikhil Balram, VP of Advanced Technologies, Sage
Title: High Definition Quality at NTSC Prices

Abstract: The long anticipated rollout of High Definition TV (HDTV) is taking place, but at a slow pace. A variety of technical, political and economic issues have slowed down the creation and delivery of HD content. However, advances in display and semiconductor technologies will allow consumers to enjoy High Definition picture quality for all content at affordable prices. This is possible using the same type of processing that is currently used in the broadcast industry to create HD broadcasts from NTSC material. This talk will explain the details behind this technology and include a demonstration.

Speaker Background: Nikhil Balram has a BS, MS, and Ph.D., in electrical engineering, all from Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently employed at Sage Incorporated, as Executive Vice-President and General Manager of Consumer Products. Prior to Sage’s merger with Faroudja Laboratories, he served as Vice-President of Advanced Technology at Faroudja. Dr. Balram has over 15 years experience in digital image/video signal processing. He holds four US patents and has published over 30 technical papers, including two invited book chapters, and given many presentations and seminars at international conferences such as SID Symposium, NAB and WinHEC. He has played a significant role in defining industry standards including PC99 and the Video2000 benchmark. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Information Display (SID). He also serves on the Carnegie Mellon Admissions Council and the Dean’s Leadership Council that advises the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Post-Seminar Dinner: The seminar is free. Please join our speaker for dinner ($10-20) afterwards. Directions to the restaurant will be handed out at the seminar.

Directions to Seminar Location: Apple Town Hall Auditorium, 4 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014

Please note the new (actually, old) seminar location. We’ll be back in the site on Infiniti Loop after they are done with some work there. This is the auditorium we used a few years back. Exit off of De Anza onto Lazaneo, and enter from the south side of the building.

For additional information contact Mark Flynn @ 408-432-7914 or webmaster@ba-sid.org.