Kees Schouhamer Immink

Infobox_Scientist
name = Kees Schouhamer Immink

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image_width = 300px
caption = Kees Schouhamer Immink| birth_date = Dec. 18, 1946
birth_place = Rotterdam, Netherlands
residence = Netherlands
nationality =
known_for = Compact Disc, DVD, Blu-ray Disc
field = Electronics, Information Theory
work_institution =Turing Machines Inc.
Philips Research Laboratories
alma_mater = Eindhoven University of Technology
prizes = Emmy Award
Edison Medal
AES Gold Medal
SMPTE Progress Medal
footnotes =

Kornelis Antonie (Kees) Schouhamer Immink (born 18 December, 1946 in Rotterdam) is a Dutch scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, who pioneered and advanced the era of digital audio, video, and data recording including popular digital media such as Compact Disc, DVD and Blu-Ray Disc [http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+UNID/61495E13777F46518625727D0076BD26?opendocument National Academy of Engineering] ] . He has been a prolific and influential engineer, who holds more than 1100 US and international patentscite web
url= http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink
title=Immink’s home page
author=
accessdate=2008-02-19] . The impact of his work on consumer electronics is so large that it is virtually impossible to enjoy digital audio or video that does not reflect his work [http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/biography/immink.html IEEE Legacies] ] . His contributions to coding systems jump started the digital video and audio revolution, by enabling reliable data storage at information densities previously thought unattainable.

Immink received several tributes that summarize the impact of his contributions to the digital audio and video revolution. Among the accolades received are the Edison Medal " for a career of creative contributions to the technologies of digital video, audio, and data recording", and an individual Technology Emmy award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) [ [http://www.emmyonline.org/mediacenter/tech_2k3_winners_data.html Winners 2003 Emmy Award.] ] [ [http://www.ce.org/Press/CEA_Pubs/932.asp CEA Digital audio pioneers] ] . Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands bestowed him a knighthood in 2000.

Currently, Immink holds the position of president of Turing Machines Inc, which was founded in 1998. During his career, Immink, in addition to his practical contributions, has contributed to Information Theory [ [http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/refs.htm Immink’s literature] ] [ [http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~junchen/sum98.pdf IEEE Information Theory Society Golden Jubilee Awards for Technological Innovation] ] . He wrote over 120 articles and four books including "Codes for Mass Data Storage Media" [ [http://www.shannonfoundation.org/book.html Codes for Mass Data Storage Systems. (three editions)] ] [ [http://www.sciencep.com/gb/node/2007-09/03/default.htm Codes for Mass Data Storage Systems (Chinese).] ] . He has been an adjunct professor at the Institute for Experimental Mathematics, University of Duisburg and Essen, Germany, since 1994, as well as affiliated with the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a visiting professor since 1997.

Education

Immink received a Bachelor's degree from the Rotterdam Academy of Arts and Engineering Sciences (1967), a Masters degree in electrical engineering (1974, cum laude) and a PhD (1985) from Eindhoven University of Technology on a thesis entitled "Properties and Constructions of Binary Channel Codes"cite web
url=http://www.darenet.nl/nl/page/repository.item/show?saharaIdentifier=tue:196456
title=Properties and Constructions of Binary Channel Codes, PhD Thesis, 1985
accessdate=2008-02-19] [MathGenealogy |id=91196] .

Early years at Philips Research

Fresh from engineering school, in 1967, he joined Philips Research Labs in Eindhoven, where he spent thirty years in a fruitful association. The renowned physicist Hendrik Casimir was director of Philips Research till 1972. Immink worked in various groups. In 1974, he joined the research group "Optics", where pioneering work was done on optical laserdisc systems. He contributed mainly to the electronics and servo technology of the video disc [US patent|4,286,318 Control loop for videodisc.] [US patent|4,357,696 Optical scanning apparatus with focussing system.] [US patent|4,193,091 Optical videodisc read unit with tracking and focussing wobble] . In a joint effort, MCA and Philips brought the laserdisc system to the market. Laserdisc was first available in Atlanta in 1978, two years after the VHS and four years before the CD. The Laserdisc never managed a significant presence in market share. The Philips/MCA Laserdisc operation was not successful and discontinued in 1981.

Compact Disc

Around 1976, Philips and Sonycite web
url= http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=2912
title= A Long-Play Digital Audio Disk System.
author=
accessdate=2008-02-19] showed prototypes of digital audio disc players, which were based on optical videodisc technology. In 1979, Philips and Sony decided to join forces, and Immink took part in the joint Sony/Philips task force, which developed the Compact Disc standard, the Red Book. He contributed to the EFM and CIRC coding schemes [US patent|4,501,000, EFM Patent, Compact Disc, CD-R, MiniDisc, 1985.] [US patent|4,477,903 Error correction system, CIRC, 1984.] .

In the article, ‘’Shannon, Beethoven, and the Compact Disc’’ [http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/beethoven.htm K.A.S. Immink, Shannon, Beethoven, and the Compact Disc.] ] , Immink presents a historical review of the years leading up to the launch of the cd, and the various crucial decisions made. He strongly refutes the urban legend that the compact disc's diameter was increased from 115 to 120mm to hold the 74 minutes playing time of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. [cite web
url=http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/cdstory.htm
title=The CD Story
author=Kees A. Schouhamer Immink
work=Journal of the AES, vol. 46, pp. 458-465, 1998
date=1998
accessdate=2007-10-26]

After the CD standard was set in 1980, Immink and his co-workers conducted pioneering experiments with magneto-optical audio recording on pre-grooved discs [cite web
url= http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=4492
title=Experiments toward an erasable Compact Disc, J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 32, pp. 531, 1984
author= K.A.S. Immink and J. Braat
accessdate=2008-02-21] . They also found a simple method to extend the analog videodisc standard with digital sound [cite web
url=http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=11765
title=Digital audio modulation in the PAL and NTSC video disc formats, J. Audio Eng. Soc. vol. 32, pp. 883, 1984
author=
accessdate=2008-02-21] . The new systems were brought to market as MiniDisc and CD Video. Laserdisc’s fabricated after 1984 have digitally encoded sound signals.

DVD and Blu-Ray Disc

In 1993, Toshiba engineers developed the Super Density Disc, the successor of the Compact Disc. Immink was member of the Philips and Sony task force, which developed a competing disc format, called MultMedia CD. Immink created EFMPlus, a more efficient successor of EFM used in CD [EFMPlus: the coding format of the MultiMedia CD, IEEE Trans. Consumer Electr., vol. CE-41, pp. 491, 1995.] [US patent|5,696,505, EFMPlus Patent, DVD, DVD-RW, and SACD.] [K.A.S. Immink The Digital Video Disc (DVD): System requirements and coding, SMPTE Journal, pp. 483, 1996.] . The electronics industry feared a repeat of the format war between VHS and Betamax in the 1980s. IBM's president, Lou Gerstner, urged them to adopt Immink’s EFMPlus coding scheme as EFM has a proven record [http://dvdhub.blogspot.com/2007/07/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-state-of-division.html Blu-ray vs HD DVD: State of the Division.] ] . In September 1995, an agreement was made among the major industries: Philips/Sony surrendered to Toshiba's SuperDensity Disc and Toshiba accepted the EFMPlus modulation. The DVD encompasses the sound-only Super Audio CD (SACD) and DVD-audio formats, developed independently by Sony and Toshiba, which are incompatible formats for delivering very high-fidelity audio content. SACD is in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither has yet managed to replace audio CDs.

Immediately after the DVD standard was settled in 1996, Philips and Sony, disappointed after the DVD failure, decided to develop a next-generation blue-laser-based digital video recorder (DVR), which would be positioned as DVDs high-density successor. Philips and Sony set up a joint task force, where Immink and his co-workers developed DVRs, later called Blu-Ray's, code design [US patent|6,225,921, Blu-ray base code.] [US patent|6,496,541, Blu-ray base code.] [US patent|6,545,615, Blu-ray base code.] [cite web |url = http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,105534-page,1/article.html |title = Sony Shows 'DVR-Blue' Prototype
accessdate = 2008-02-25 |date=2000-10-11 |work = cdrinfo.com ] . In 2005, seven years after its design, the Blu-ray disc was brought to market. In 2002, the DVD forum adopted an alternative format, the HD DVD [cite web |url=http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2003/11/28/dvd-forum-backs-toshiba-nec-format
title=DVD Forum backs Toshiba-NEC format
accessdate=2008-02-21 |author= |date=2003-11-28 |work=theinquirer.net |publisher=] . The two resulting standards had significant differences that made each incompatible with the other. The blue-laser format war with Toshiba’s HD DVD was settled in early 2008 when Toshiba withdrew their system effectively ending the high definition optical disc format war.

DV and DCC

In 1985, Immink joined Philips’ magnetic recording group, where he contributed to the design of coding technologies of the digital video tape recorder, DV [cite web
url=http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=370325
title=K.A.S. Immink and J. Kahlman, Channel code with embedded pilot tracking tones for DVC-R, IEEE Trans. Consumer Electronics, vol. CE-41, no. 1, pp. 180, 1995.
accessdate=2008-02-24] Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands, 2000.

Honorary member, Netherlands Electronics and Radio Society (NERG), 2000.

Millennium Medal awarded by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,(IEEE), 2000.

AES Gold Medal awarded by the Audio Engineering Society, (AES), 1999, For significant contributions to the advancement of consumer audio technology.

IEEE Edison Medal, 1999, For a career of creativecontributions to the technologies of digital video, audio, and data recording.

Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation awarded by the IEEE Information Theory Society, 1998, For the invention of constrained codes for commercial recording systems.

AES 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal awarded by the Audio Engineering Society, 1998.

Academician, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, (KNAW) 1996.

Fellow, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE),1996.

IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Awardawarded by the IEEE, 1996, For pioneering contributions to consumer digital audio and video recording products [ [http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/about/awards/pr/ibukapr.html Winners of the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award.] .]

Alexander M. Poniatoff Gold Medal Award for Technical Excellence awarded bythe Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 1994, For outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques and/or equipment that have contributed to the advancement of audio or video magnetic recording and reproduction.

Sir J.J. Thomson Medal awarded by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE),1993, For distinguished contributions to electronics.

AES Silver Medal awarded by the Audio Engineering Society, 1992, For major contributions to the development of digital audio recording systems.

References

Literature

* "Codes for Mass Data Storage Systems, Second fully revised edition", Shannon Foundation Publishers, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Nov. 2004. ISBN 90-74249-27-2 [http://www.shannonfoundation.org/book.html]
* "The Compact Disc Story", AES Journal, pp. 458-465, May 1998 [http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/cdstory.pdf] .
*"The future of digital audio recording", AES Journal., pp. 171-172, 1999 [http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/future.pdf] .
*US patent|4,501,000, EFM Patent, base code applied in Compact Disc, CD-R, MiniDisc
*US patent|5,696,505, EFMPlus Patent, base code applied in DVD, DVD-RW, SACD

ources

* [http://www.smpte.org/resources/awards_program/progress_winners Winners SMPTE Progress Medal]
* [http://www.emmyonline.org/mediacenter/tech_2k3_winners_data.html Winners 2003 Emmy Award]

External links

* [http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/biography/immink.html IEEE Legacies]
* [http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink Immink's Home page]