Ajit Ninan has a distinguished career in imaging and media spanning over 25 years. Mr. Ninan’s work at both startups and large companies is centered around building imaging, displays, and networking solutions. He has been part of standards efforts for image/video codecs and network protocols, such as JPEG and IEEE 802.17. His projects range from display systems, laser light sources, high dynamic range (HDR) displays, formats, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), audio solutions, and ecosystems. His work encompasses all aspects of imaging, from displays, optics, color, tone, and display mapping to computer vision algorithms.Ninan’s contributions to MPEG solutions started with multiple chip rack solutions to shipping USB stick devices with multi-standard encoders built in as a testament to Moore’s Law. At Motorola, he helped build an optimized encoder solution that leveraged aspects of human perception to lower bitrates and preserve visual quality. Later, his career shifted towards displays when he joined Dolby to help diversify from audio into video. His accomplishments include Dolby Vision and building the first 4,000 nits HDR display “Pulsar,” which was recognized by the Advanced Imaging Society (AIS) with their Lumiere Award for “pioneering HDR in Hollywood,” and an Emmy Award for contributions to HDR. With more than 400 patents in imaging and entertainment, many centered around quantum dots displays, he helped drive the adoption of QD TVs in the industry. He built the first QD HDR monitor receiving the Society for Information Display’s Best in Show Award with Nanosys, leading the way for TV manufacturers like Vizio in using his designs. He was also an inventor and author of the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)-XT Part 2, also known as JPEG-HDR. His passion for this work continues into AR/VR and immersive imaging and human perception, driving architecture for display systems at Meta. He continues his involvement in SID and is a fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). Ninan has been discussing the challenges and considerations on redesigning displays at SID and other imaging forums since 2016 on with what he calls the Ninan’s Nine.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcWEPSydrIoHe was recently featured in SID’s ID Asks and his personal story about resilience and persistence is told in this article.https://sid.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/msid.1550
