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SMPTE Engineering Activities
A report by F. T. BOWDITCH, Engineering Vice-President
_L HE ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES of the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers are much more extensive than perhaps most members realize. Engineering Committee reports appear in the Journal from time to time, but usually these give a detailed picture in a rather limited field rather than a broad view of the total activity. The frequent publication of proposed American Standards is another evidence of Society engineering activity, but this has sometimes created the feeling that the preparation of Standards proposals is the only activity in which the Engineering Committees of the Society are engaged. For these reasons, the writer has been encouraged to prepare this present report, designed to provide an overall picture which, while perhaps over-simplified in the particular details most familiar to any one reader, will at the same time give him information of general interest in other less familiar fields.
Editor's Note: This report, scheduled for some time for the Journal, now has special significance as a summing up by Engineering Vice-President Bowditch who, because of new responsibilities at the Research Laboratories, National Carbon Company, Cleveland, Ohio has found it necessary to resign before the expiration of his present term. He has served the Society as its Engineering Vice-President since January 1950.
Foremost in the engineering activities of the Society is of course the work of its Engineering Committees. From 1 to 75 pages of any individual Journal issue may be devoted to this field, and a check of Journals since January, 1950, shows an average of about 17 such pages per issue. This includes not only Committee Reports and the publication of proposed and final American Standards, but records of Convention symposia growing out of Committee deliberations on such widely different and often highly controversial subjects as preferred screen-viewing conditions, proposed magnetic film standards and 16mm emulsion position. A complete bibliography of Engineering Committee publications would thus be very extensive indeed, and much too long for inclusion here. For this reason, the references cited are confined to publications during the writer's term of office — except for a few much earlier ones of historical interest.
The Society prides itself on providing in these Committees a completely neutral atmosphere, without commercial bias, where the most active competitors can get together to work out their common problems. A more complete statement of the high regard in which the Society holds its responsibilities here will be found in the policy statement1 published by the writer soon after assuming the Engineering
September 1952 Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 59
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