The National Association of Broadcasters announced the recipients of the 2022 NAB Engineering Achievement Awards. The recipients will be recognized at the 2022 NAB Show, held April 23-27 in Las Vegas.
Each year since 1959, the NAB has presented the Engineering Achievement Award to an individual for his or her outstanding accomplishments in the broadcast industry. In 1991, the Association began giving two awards, one for achievements in radio and the other for television.
The NAB TV Engineering Award recipient is SBE member Peter Sockett of Capitol Broadcasting Company. The NAB Radio Engineering Award recipient is Ashruf El-Dinary of Xperi Corporation.
As the director of engineering and operations for Capitol Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) television stations, Peter Sockett is responsible for leading and steering the technology needs of CBC and preparing for the coming trends affecting broadcasting.
During his career, Sockett has been instrumental in a total rebuild of CBC’s HD technical facility, the launch of the first non-linear HD newsroom, development of workflows for IP-ENG, implementation of Mobile DTV and Mobile EAS, creation of the first 4K-HDR documentary produced at a local TV station, the launch of the first commercial, simulcast TV station using the ATSC 3.0 standard, and the launch of local sports channel WNGT.
Sockett sits on the board of directors for the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and is the chair of the ATSC 3.0 Advanced Emergency Alerting Implementation Team. He has earned three Emmy Awards, Broadcasting & Cable’s Technical Leadership Award and an Edward R. Murrow award. He is a co-inventor of a patent for geolocation.
Ashruf El-Dinary is senior vice president of Digital Platforms at Xperi Corporation, where he oversees the HD Radio systems engineering teams, manages the certification and quality control processes, and represents HD Radio technology standards in International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and international regulatory discussions. He currently leads the efforts for new broadcast applications, upgrades to emergency alerting, and deployment of digital radio solutions internationally.
El-Dinary has over 20 years of experience in developing HD Radio technology and holds a number of patents for innovative digital radio solutions. He previously worked at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory developing scientific instrumentation in support of space research programs and launched solutions on several satellites. He also taught signal processing courses at JHU’s Whiting School of Engineering.
NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt will present the Radio and Television Engineering Achievement Awards during a session titled “Hollywood’s ‘Binge Times’ OTT Battle and NAB Engineering Awards” on Sunday, April 24 at 3 p.m.
