Bryson Jones, the "Hi-Def Cowboy,"

In 1997 Bryson Jones, also known as the "Hi-Def Cowboy," left E! Entertainment Television, where he was an IT administrator, to found his own technical services business. In its early years Techworks, as it is known, provided nonlinear editorial support and storage system (SAN) design and support, as well as end-to-end workflow consulting and facility integration. In more recent years, as the industry has moved to tapeless production and IP-based networking and storage systems, the company has been on the cutting edge of this migration.
As the storage systems got larger and file counts got higher, Jones was introduced to the world of asset management on a reality television production where he became one of, if not the, first technicians to use the asset management suite CatDV on an American television production. Finding this project a challenge well suited to his knowledge base and skill set, Jones redirected his company to address the coming wave of clients needing Digital Asset Management, expanding its expertise in storage and networking to include media archive and middleware solutions to support the various DAMs that are on the market today.
Jones' company has built systems for clients such as NBC.com, Yahoo Originals, BET, Sony Music Entertainment and Hollywood.TV, and supports or consults for dozens of productions ranging from VH1's Celebrity Rehab and Syfy'sDestination Truth, currently on US television, to films including the critically acclaimed documentary Buena Vista Social Club and commercial juggernauts like director Zach Snyder's 300, for which he designed and installed the editorial storage. The newest and perhaps fastest growing production segment has been Web content providers such as Fox Digital, Take180 Studios and the previously mentioned Yahoo Originals, where production meets Web technology and content moves from the extreme bandwidth of fibre channel networks to the tight restrictions of the Internet in minutes.

Drawing on years of real-world experience in the trenches of postproduction, and adding to that solid IT and programming skills, the "Hi-Def Cowboy" strives to bring order to the Wild West of tapeless production as it exists today.

Russell Southwood, CEO, Balancing Act.

A consultancy and research company specialising in telecoms, Internet and broadcasting in Africa. His consultancy work has included: an assessment of two different sectors in the TV market in Africa; an assessment of the transition to digital broadcasting in over 20 African countries; an appraisal of an investment in a wireless broadband operator; and a study on Open Access models for infoDev. He is the author of Balancing Act's Briefing Paper The Digital Transition - Changing how broadcast functions. He is about to start a study for the Open Society Institute with a research team looking at cost-effective ways of digital migration in Africa and identifying what the "public interest" issues are to be addressed in making the transition.

Marius van Straaten, Director Visual Impact-South Africa

Visual Impact-South Africa, providers of broadcast solutions for the film and video industry. He is currently completing his Masters degree in Film and Video with a focus on mobile media and new broadcast technologies. Marius has participated in broadcast projects such as Fear Factor, The Batchelor, Scream, Idols, High school Musical and the Red Bull Music academy. Marius conceptualised and developed the Media Hive Media project and the Visual Impact - Academy, which focuses on HD, broadcast technology and training.

Stefan Nell, Digital Imaging Specialist

Specialising in high end digital imaging from High speed cinematography to 3D and Digital feature and commercials acquisition. He has worked on projects such as The Flood, Kick Ass, Earth Flight (BBC Wildlife) and the latest 3D commercial for SA tourism. One of Stefan's recent challenging wildlife shoots was a three week 3D shoot with the BBC on the ocean and from a helicopter. Stefan is the most experienced South African Digital Image Technologist (DIT) available.

Russell Bowden, 3D Stereoscopic Rig Designer

While working as a DIT Russ saw a gap in the 3D Stereoscopic market for 3D camera support systems and began designing a 3D Stereoscopic Rig in June 2008. The first Prototype was completed in March 2009 and was used to shoot an 8 minute Promo for the World Cup trophy tour. The ProUltra 3D Rig has since gone through an evolutionary process and today remains the only computerised and most cost effective rig on the world market. The Pro Ultra 3D rigs are now working in Portugal, the UK and Singapore.

Shaun de Ponte, Final Cut Pro editor and 3D Technician

A couple of his major shoots include working at Soccer City shooting the 3D trophy tour during the FIFA 2010 word cup final and Danny K's album launch at The Venue in Melrose.
Shaun has developed a 3D plugin for Final Cut Pro which can be used as quality control for high end 3D shoots, and also for primary 3D editing within Final Cut Pro.

Kevin Duggan, Specialist in Archiving Workflows & Digital Asset Management.

Kevin has been in broadcast for over thirty years as a Director of Photography and has filmed many award wining films in his long career working for all the major broadcast organizations in the UK. He has also owned and run post production companies. In this capacity he was a vey early adopter of Avid , Media 100 ,Premiere and FinalCut Pro NLE systems as well as having three machine tape systems. As a pioneer he had to invent workflows to increase efficiencies and meet deadlines. This culminated in him being asked to design and build systems and workflows for the first Volvo Ocean Race based Final Cut Pro ,shared storage and collaborative workflows. He managed the transition to HD for the second Race and is currently working on the third having moved the facility from the UK to Spain. Six years ago he installed 34 seats of FCP into ITV London based on Xsan and was responsible for deployment training and workflows on this significant project. As a result of this work he perceived a weakness in the workflows and the need for significant asset management software. He became Product Manager for Catdv and influenced its development as production centric product.

Currently his clients include some of the largest media companies in the world. NASCAR , SONY , TURNER BROADCAST , NBC , BBC , RED BULL TELEVISA and many others and he consults world wide on archiving workflows and all aspects of Digital Assets Management. He has a large practical and philosophical knowledge of the industry and has built end to end workflows for many small shops to some of the giants encompassing multiple petabytes of data. He is keen that the lessons of the past are not lost as we move forward into these new uncharted territories of tapeless and file based workflows and the role that metadata will play within it

Roland Brown, Chair of the UK Digital Television Group

Roland Brown held the post of Director of Engineer at MPC (The Moving Picture Company), Soho, London, from 1985 - 2007, MPC specialises in Digital Visual Effects for Feature Films and Television Commercials. He was a Non-Executive Director at Quantel Ltd, from 2007 - 2011. Currently he is CEO of &&& Technology Limited and is a Non-Executive Director Imagineer Systems Ltd (VFX software). His career has spanned four decades of major technological development, from being responsible for the setting up of commercial TV facilities industry in South Africa, to working on every aspect of outside broadcasting and post production. He is also the current President of the BKSTS (British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society) and chairman of the DTG Production Systems group, which focuses on HD research, and he is a member of ELBA's ‘London Legacy 2020' committee. Roland is the external assessor for the post graduate, digital post production course and member of the advisory board at the National Film and Television School.