Video Processing Through the Decades; Why Innovation Never Ends

Abstract

Thirty years ago, Scott started his career focused on video processing and never imagined that decades later he would still be transforming the domain, continuing to file multiple patents a year, authoring new industry standards and have been awarded two Technical Emmys.  During this talk, Scott will review technology and industry factors that drove the evolution of video processing and delivery, lessons learned through start-ups and acquisitions that both lifted and stifled innovation, and why a passion for embracing creativity has led to a successful career.

Speaker Bio

Scott Labrozzi is a widely recognized expert in the streaming media industry, with 30 years of experience leading technology and product development in video technologies. He holds a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from NC State.

Labrozzi began his career in the early 1990s at Sun Microsystems, where he developed foundational software and hardware solutions for video processing, capture, and encoding. As a co-founder and later Vice President of Engineering at Osprey Technologies, he led research and development for the company’s video software and hardware products, which gained widespread industry recognition and adoption.

As co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Inlet Technologies, Labrozzi played a key role in the evolution of Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) solutions. His team’s products became the industry standard for ABR streaming. Following Cisco’s acquisition of Inlet in 2011, he continued to lead architecture efforts related to ABR encoding and packaging. He was a lead author of the published industry standards on Adaptive Transport Streams and Encoder Boundary Point handling.

In 2016, Labrozzi joined Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) as a Senior Principal Engineer and Vice President of the Core Media Processing organization, focusing on MLBAM’s video and encoding technologies. MLBAM evolved into Bamtech Media, which was later acquired by Disney.

Labrozzi is currently Vice President of Core Media Technology and an Engineering Fellow at Disney Streaming. He and his team are responsible for building live and on-demand video processing solutions used by ESPN+, Hulu, Star, and Disney+. He remains actively involved in research and development efforts across The Walt Disney Company, driving advancements in media processing.