Posted on January 6, 2021 in ATSC News
Yeshwant Muthusamy, Senior Director, Standards at Immersion Corporation, has worked on the ATSC 3.0 standard throughout the decade first as a part of the 3D Audio standardization and then as a part of the haptics standardization where he is currently involved.
“ATSC 3.0 is a quantum leap from ATSC 1.0 in terms of usability, in my opinion,” said Muthusamy. “Apart from the technological advances that are most obvious to the viewing public (UHD video, 3D Audio), it is the ability for people to view content on their mobile devices over broadcast or broadband, that is most likely to resonate with millennial viewers and contribute to its uptake.”
Muthusamy was born and raised in south central India and took a keen, early interest in math, sciences and computer technology. He earned his Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad and was admitted to the Ph.D. program in Computer Science and Engineering at the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology, in Portland, Oregon which brought him to the United States.
He spent time teaching Speech Research at Texas Instruments and then accepted leadership positions at Nokia, Samsung, Toyota Connected, and Toyota.
“I found that I enjoyed the mix of technology and politics that standardization work represented. The way I see it, technology is easy. Politics can be boring, but put them together, and you get a potent brew that can keep you energized and ultimately result in technology standards that are beneficial to everyone involved,” he said.
It was during his time at Samsung when he became involved with ATSC as the company wanted to champion MPEG-H 3D Audio as the ATSC 3.0 Audio standard, so I was a natural choice to lead the ATSC 3.0 audio effort as well.
“It was my first foray into TV broadcast standardization, and I took to it like a fish to water. The opportunity to influence the selection of a 3D audio standard for ATSC 3.0 was an attractive one. The fact that I could learn more about television broadcasting in the process, was just the icing on the cake,” he said.
In January 2020 he pitched the idea of including haptics in ATSC 3.0. The project was approved and work on a Recommended Practice on Haptics commenced. ATSC expects to publish the completed work in the coming weeks.
“I’m quite proud that the progression from an idea to an NWIP (New Work Item Proposal) to an approved recommended practice is on track to take less than a year, an uncommon occurrence, from what I’ve heard,” he said.
Muthusamy is married and lives in Allen, Texas. His son, Vikrant, is an aspiring music composer/producer, with his own music record label and studio in Los Angeles. His stepsons are Vinayak, a junior at UT San Antonio, majoring in cybersecurity and management science, and Kiran, a 10th-grader in high school.
While not fluent, Muthusamy has learned the basics of French, German, Swedish, Hungarian, European Portuguese, and Korean. He also enjoys de-stressing with cooking and hosts an annual Oscar-watch party to combine his “amateur” culinary skills with love of movies.
Posted in ATSC News
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