Alan Edward Bell was a technologist who played a central role in developing the universal DVD format and the DVD copy protection system. He worked at RCA, IBM,

Warner Bros. Studios Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

, and

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

before co-founding WR Entertainment.T. Plimmer, "Alan Bell obituary", The Guardian, Sun 29 May 2016 10.17 EDT
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Background, Education, and Death

Alan Bell was born in

Brixton Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...

, south London, around 1949. His parents, Ivy (nee Smith) and Ted were a factory worker and a printer, respectively. The family moved to

Crawley Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of th ...

, West Sussex, in 1957 where Bell attended Thomas Bennett comprehensive school. Bell studied at Imperial College, London, gaining a first class degree in physics in 1969. He was awarded a PhD degree in 1973 also from Imperial College for experimental work on the low-temperature magnetic and electrical properties of dilute alloys (Kondo effect) working under A. D. Kaplin. He then received a Sarnoff Fellowship to visit RCA Laboratories at

Princeton, N.J. Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of wh ...

as a postdoctoral researcher working, for nine months, on liquid crystals using optical Raman scattering to determine the molecular ordering of the nematic phase. Bell was married to Patricia (nee Wilkinson) from 1972 until their divorce in 2009. They had two children, Geoffrey and Melissa. In May 2016, Bell was killed in a motorcycle accident while on vacation in

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

Career

In 1974, Bell completed his postdoc and joined the technical staff at the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center. His research focussed on improving the recording characteristics of metallic recording media. The research led to the development of broadcast-quality optical video recording, the RCA videodisc. Bell served as a Senior Scientist for Exxon’s Central Research Laboratory. From 1982 to 2000, he worked for IBM Almaden Research Center. He was instrumental in the unification of the competing formats that resulted in the introduction of DVD and was a member of IBM's digital media team focused on copy protection technologies.Alan E. Bell, "Next-Generation Compact Discs" Scientific American , Vol. 275, No. 1, pp. 42-46, July 1996
/ref> The method and format were agreed between IBM, Intel, Matsushita, and Toshiba. In 2000, Bell was named Executive Vice President of Technology at Warner Bros., Technical Operations."Alan E Bell named senior vice-president technology", Warner Brothers press release, October 25, 2000
/ref> In 2007, Bell became Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for

. In September 2009, Bell co-founded WR Entertainment with six other founders James F. Cardwell, Ryan Wiik,

Duane M. Eberlein Duane Milton Eberlein is a Certified Public Accountant in California who has served as principal financial or accounting officer for four public companies over the past 30 years. Since 1998, Eberlein has served as a member of the board of directors ...

, Øyvind Holm-Johnsen, Steinar Larsen and

Michael Joseph Smith Michael Joseph Smith (born August 13, 1938) was an American composer and pianist born in Tiline, Kentucky. At the age of 6 years, he gave his first concert of original solo piano music in Nashville, Tennessee. After serving in the United States ...

. Alan Bell is most recognized for his role in the unification of the DVD format, and also led the negotiations that led to the development of DVD copy protection, without which the major studios would not have released content to DVD.

Awards and Recognition

In 1975, Bell received an RCA Laboratories Achievement Award. In 1984, he became a Fellow of the Optical Society of America for his contributions to the DVD format. In 2001, Bell became a fellow of the IEEE "for developments in optical data storage applications and technology". Bell has authored or coauthored 29 issued US patents and numerous scientific papers.DBPL Computer Science Bibliography: Alan E. Bell
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Alan E. Cinema pioneers DVD IBM employees Living people American chief technology officers Alumni of Imperial College London 1949 births