AOMedia Member Spotlight with Samsung Research America's Bill Mandel

Please introduce your company and yourself briefly.

I'm the Vice President of Industry Relations at Samsung Research America's Digital Media Solutions Lab. We are engaged in researching emerging technology to create new businesses and developing core technology to enhance the competitiveness of Samsung products. Samsung Research America also plays a key role in providing the infrastructure to support Samsung's open innovation and university collaboration activities.

What first brought you to AOMedia, and why did you decide to become a member?

Samsung got involved because we're pursuing HDR technologies, which is in line with AV1, and we're pursuing accessible codec technologies from a licensing perspective. We're now able to get broader adoption across a wider range of products than we could with just point solutions. There are clear benefits to active participation in AOMedia.

Samsung Research in Seoul is participating in the AOMedia Codec Working Group, and as a member of the Samsung Southern California based media lab, I'm working with AOMedia's Metadata Working Group.

What AV1 projects are you working on? How will end-users benefit from your work? Businesses? Markets?

We have a big AV1 effort underway right now. Since the AV1 specification is complete, we introduced support for HDR10+ technology and announced at CES that we have implemented AV1 into our 2020 televisions. We showed 8K running with AV1 and HDR10+ at CES. We are pushing the envelope of all compliant technologies, showing how they are immediately available.

For the consumer, the benefit will be to access to all the latest video technologies through an open codec like AV1. AV1 support will enable broader types of online media to reach the home with not just any open technologies, but the absolute latest cutting-edge technology.

There are a growing number of online streaming content and media and broadcast providers that require the TV to deliver the advancements in displaying and delivering the video. It's a whole new world.

Right now, online media companies and content distributors must go through and license all the technology they want to use to send content to a home. Using AV1 and HDR10+ eliminates that step. Consumers have access to the latest technologies like 8K and HDR, without any meaningful barriers.

This will encourage video innovation for the next generation of content providers. A decade ago, Adobe Flash provided similar easy to access functionality. By making the technology accessible to everyone, that video ecosystem grew. Since then, growth has been stymied because 3D, 4K, and HDR launches had complications. But now, through AOMedia, the set of these technologies is completely available in an open way with no barrier to entry, specifically HDR, HDR10+ and 8K via AOMedia's AV1.

Our January CES announcement highlighted technology advancements on Samsung 2020 TVs that will enable consumers to enjoy and stream AV1 coded videos filmed in 8K on our QLED 8K TVs in HDR10+. And we are actively working to create pathways for streaming native 8K content.