Kornelis Antonie "Kees" Schouhamer Immink (born 18 December 1946) is a Dutch scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, who pioneered and advanced the era of digital audio, video, and data recording, including popular digital media such as

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in O ...

, DVD and

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

.National Academy of Engineering
He has been a prolific and influential engineer, who holds more than 1100 U.S. and international patents. A large portion of the commonly used audio and video playback and recording devices use technologies based on his work. His contributions to coding systems assisted the digital video and audio revolution, by enabling reliable data storage at information densities previously unattainable. Immink received several tributes that summarize the impact of his contributions to the digital audio and video revolution. Among the accolades received are the

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contributi ...

"for pioneering contributions to video, audio, and data recording technology, including compact disc, DVD, and Blu-ray", the

Edison Medal The IEEE Edison Medal is presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering, or the electrical arts." It is the oldest medal in this fi ...

and an individual Technology Emmy award by the

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, edu ...

(NATAS).

Beatrix Beatrix is a Latin feminine given name, most likely derived from ''Viatrix'', a feminine form of the Late Latin name ''Viator'' which meant "voyager, traveller" and later influenced in spelling by association with the Latin word ''beatus'' or "bles ...

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

of the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

bestowed him a knighthood in 2000. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 2007 for pioneering and advancing the era of digital audio, video, and data recording. Royal Holland Society of Arts and Sciences introduced the Kees Schouhamer Immink Prize in 2019 as a means to encourage research on information science and tele-communications. Currently, Immink holds the position of president of Turing Machines Inc, which was founded in 1998. During his career, Immink, in addition to his practical contributions, has contributed to

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

. He has written over 120 articles and four books, including ''Codes for Mass Data Storage Media''. He has been an adjunct professor at the

Institute for Experimental Mathematics The Institute for Experimental Mathematics (IEM) was founded, with the support of the Volkswagen Foundation, as a central scientific facility of the former University of Essen, now University of Duisburg-Essen in 1989. With the addition of the Al ...

University of Duisburg and Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen (german: link=no, Universität Duisburg-Essen) is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, since 1994, as well as affiliated with the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in th ...

(NUS) and

Singapore University of Technology and Design The Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is a public autonomous university in Singapore. History The founding president is Thomas L. Magnanti, who is a professor associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

(SUTD) as a visiting professor.

Education

Immink obtained an

Engineer's degree An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always requires a non-a ...

(Ir.) in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

(1974, cum laude) and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

degree (1985) from Eindhoven University of Technology on a

thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144 ...

entitled ''Properties and Constructions of Binary Channel Codes'' .

Early years at Philips Research

Fresh from engineering school, in 1967, he joined

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

Research Labs in

Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Hendrik Casimir Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir (15 July 1909 – 4 May 2000) was a Dutch physicist best known for his research on the two-fluid model of superconductors (together with C. J. Gorter) in 1934 and the Casimir effect (together with D. Polder) in 1 ...

was director of Philips Research till 1972. Immink described the atmosphere at that time: "We were able to conduct whatever research we found relevant, and had no pre-determined tasks; instead, we received full freedom and support of autonomous research. We went to work, not knowing that we would do that day. This view – or rather ambiguous view – on how research should be conducted, led to amazing inventions as a result. It was an innovation heaven". Immink worked in various groups, and in 1974, he joined the research group ''Optics'', where pioneering work was done on optical

laserdisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typical ...

systems. He contributed mainly to the

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

and

servo Servo may refer to: Mechanisms * Servomechanism, or servo, a device used to provide control of a desired operation through the use of feedback ** AI servo, an autofocus mode ** Electrohydraulic servo valve, an electrically operated valve that c ...

technology of the video disc. In a joint effort,

MCA MCA may refer to: Astronomy * Mars-crossing asteroid, an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars Aviation * Minimum crossing altitude, a minimum obstacle crossing altitude for fixes on published airways * Medium Combat Aircraft, a 5th gen ...

and Philips brought the laserdisc system to the market. Laserdisc was first available in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

in 1978, two years after the VHS and four years before the CD. The Laserdisc never managed a significant presence in market share. The Philips/MCA Laserdisc operation was not successful and discontinued in 1981.

Compact Disc

Around 1976, Philips and Sony showed prototypes of digital audio disc players, which were based on optical

videodisc Videodisc (or video disc) is a general term for a laser- or stylus-readable random-access disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form. Typically, it is a reference to any such media that predates the mainstrea ...

technology. In the interview by Tekla Perry for the

IEEE Spectrum ''IEEE Spectrum'' is a magazine edited by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The first issue of ''IEEE Spectrum'' was published in January 1964 as a successor to ''Electrical Engineering''. The magazine contains peer-reviewe ...

, May 2017, Immink explains that he got involved in the CD project at the end of 1979 when Sony and Philips had decided to jointly settle on one design. Both Philips and Sony had shown prototype CD players to the press in 1978. The team at Philips, he says, "needed someone to do measurements of the two competing systems, the quality, how they coped with scratches, how they coped with imperfections of the disc. My job with the

LaserDisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typical ...

was finished, so I said, 'Sure, I could do it.'" Both Philips and Sony had come up with different rules for translating digital audio data to sequences of pits and lands. After a lot of experimentation, Immink improved the playing time by thirty percent by inventing a code that could better cope with the servo systems. The encoding system Immink devised came to be called

eight-to-fourteen modulation Eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM) is a data encoding technique – formally, a ''line code'' – used by compact discs (CD), laserdiscs (LD) and pre-Hi-MD MiniDiscs. EFMPlus is a related code, used in DVDs and Super Audio CDs (SACDs). EFM and E ...

(EFM). Immink took part in the joint

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

–

task force, which developed the

standard, the Red Book. He contributed to the EFM and

CIRC Circ or CIRC may refer to: * Čirč, a village and municipality in northern Slovakia * Circ (company), a German scooter-sharing company acquired by Bird * Circ (duo), an American music duo * China Insurance Regulatory Commission * Climate Impact ...

coding schemes. In the article, "Shannon, Beethoven, and the Compact Disc", Immink presents a historical review of the years leading up to the launch of the CD, and the various crucial decisions made. He refutes the urban legend that the compact disc's diameter was increased from 115 to 120 mm solely to hold the 74 minutes playing time of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

's Ninth Symphony conducted by

Wilhelm Furtwängler Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler ( , , ; 25 January 188630 November 1954) was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. He was a major ...

. Commercial disputes also played a part. After the CD standard was set in 1980, Immink and his co-workers conducted pioneering experiments with magneto-optical audio recording on pre-grooved discs. They also found a simple method to extend the analog

standard with digital sound. The new systems were brought to market as

MiniDisc MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio. Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November of that year fo ...

and

CD Video CD Video (also known as CDV, CD-V, or CD+V) is a format of optical media disc that was introduced in 1987 that combines the technologies of standard compact disc and LaserDisc. CD-V discs are the same size as a standard 12-cm audio CD, and conta ...

Laserdisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typical ...

s fabricated after 1984 have digitally encoded sound signals.

DVD and Blu-ray Disc

In 1993,

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

engineers developed the

Super Density Disc The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

, the successor of the

. Immink was a member of the

and

task force, which developed a competing disc format, called MultiMedia CD. Immink created EFMPlus, a more efficient successor of EFM used in CD. The electronics industry feared a repeat of the format war between VHS and

Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, ...

in the 1980s. IBM's president,

Lou Gerstner Louis Vincent "Lou" Gerstner Jr. (born March 1, 1942) is an American businessman, best known for his tenure as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002, when he retired as CEO in March and chairman in ...

, urged them to adopt Immink's EFMPlus coding scheme as EFM has a proven record.Blu-ray vs HD DVD: State of the Division.
/ref> In September 1995, an agreement was made among the major industries: Philips/Sony surrendered to Toshiba's SuperDensity Disc and Toshiba accepted the EFMPlus modulation. The DVD encompasses the sound-only

Super Audio CD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows multiple a ...

(SACD) and

DVD-audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The st ...

formats, developed independently by

and

, which are incompatible formats for delivering very high-fidelity audio content. SACD is in a

format war A format war is a competition between similar but mutually incompatible technical standards that compete for the same market, such as for data storage devices and recording formats for electronic media. It is often characterized by political ...

with

DVD-Audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The st ...

, but neither has yet managed to replace audio CDs. Immediately after the DVD standard was settled in 1996, Philips and Sony, disappointed after the DVD failure, decided to develop a next-generation blue-

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...

-based

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to ...

(DVR), which would be positioned as DVD's high-density successor. Philips and Sony set up a joint task force, where Immink and his co-workers developed DVRs, later called

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

's, code design. In 2005, seven years after its design, the Blu-ray Disc was brought to market. In 2002, the

DVD forum The DVD Forum is an international organization composed of hardware, software, media and production companies that use and develop the DVD and formerly HD DVD formats. It was initially known as the DVD Consortium when it was founded in 1995. ...

adopted an alternative format, the

HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the ...

. The two resulting standards had significant differences that made each incompatible with the other. The blue-laser

with Toshiba's

was settled in early 2008 when Toshiba withdrew their system effectively ending the

high definition optical disc format war The high-definition optical disc format war was a market competition between the Blu-ray and HD DVD optical disc standards for storing high-definition video and audio; it took place between 2006 and 2008 and was won by Blu-ray Disc. The two ...

DV and DCC

In 1985, Immink joined Philips's

magnetic recording Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is ac ...

group, where he contributed to the design of coding technologies of the digital video tape recorder, DVList of Winners SMPTE Progress Medal.
/ref> and the

Digital Compact Cassette The Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) is a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita Electric in late and marketed as the successor to the standard analog Compact Cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony ...

(DCC). The DCC was short-lived: introduced in 1992 and discontinued in 1996. The DV, launched in 1994, has become a popular tape standard for home and semi-professional video production.

Turing Machines

After more than thirty years, Immink left

Research in 1998, and founded Turing Machines Inc., where he currently serves as its president. The small research institute has been successful in creating new coding technology and has been granted around ten US patents.

Service to engineering society

Immink has served in officer and board positions for a number of technical societies, government and academic organizations, including the

Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

, and several universities. He is a trustee of the Shannon Foundation, and was a governor of the IEEE

Consumer Electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...

and

Information Theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

Societies. He was on the governors board of the

for over 10 years, and was its president in 2002–2003.

Awards and honours

, ''for pioneering contributions to video, audio, and data recording technology, including compact disc, DVD, and Blu-ray'', 2017 *

Faraday Medal The Faraday Medal is a top international medal awarded by the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) (previously called the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE)). It is part of the IET Achievement Medals collection of awards. ...

IET __NOTOC__ IET can refer to: Organizations * Institute of Educational Technology, part of the Open University * Institution of Engineering and Technology, a UK-based professional engineering institution ** Institute of Engineers and Technicians, wh ...

, 2015 * Lifetime achievement finalist,

European Inventor Award The European Inventor Award(formerly European Inventor of the Year Award, renamed in 2010), are presented annually by the European Patent Office, sometimes supported by the respective Presidency of the Council of the European Union and by the Eur ...

, 2015 * Eduard Rhein Technology Award, ''for contributions to the theory and practice of channel codes that enable efficient and reliable optical recording, and creative contributions to digital recording technology'' awarded by the

Eduard Rhein Foundation The Eduard Rhein Foundation was founded in 1976 in Hamburg (Germany) by Eduard Rhein. The goal of the foundation is to promote scientific research, learning, arts, and culture. This is done in particular by granting awards for outstanding achievemen ...

(

, 2014). *

Honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

(dr.h.c.) from the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is a public university located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the ...

, ''in recognition of the remarkable contributions he has made to intellectual and public life'' (

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

, 2014) * Member

Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen The Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities), located on the east side of the Spaarne in downtown Haarlem, Netherlands, was established in 1752 and is the oldest society for the sci ...

, Haarlem, 2012. * IEEE Chester Sall Consumer Electronics Award, ''For DC-free Multimode Code Design Using Novel Selection Criteria for Optical Recording Systems,'' (co-recipient with Jun Lee), 2011, * Foreign Associate of the

( USA, 2007) * SMPTE Progress Medal awarded by the

, ''for the central role played in research and development of audio and video recording products'' ( USA, 2004) *

Consumer Electronics Engineering Excellence Award ( USA, 2004) * Heyser Memorial lecturer awarded by the

( USA, May 2004) * Technology and Engineering

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

awarded by the

National Television Academy The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, edu ...

, ''for coding technology for optical recording formats'' ( USA, 2003) * Inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame ( USA, 2003) * Knight of the

Order of Orange-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau ( nl, Orde van Oranje-Nassau, links=no) is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has ...

(

, 2000) * Honorary Member of the Netherlands Electronics and Radio Society (

, 2000) * Millennium Medal awarded by the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

( USA, 2000) * AES Gold Medal awarded by the

, ''for significant contributions to the advancement of consumer audio technology'' ( USA, 1999) * IEEE

, ''for a career of creative contributions to the technologies of digital video, audio, and data recording.'' ( USA, 1999) * Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation awarded by the

IEEE Information Theory Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, ''for the invention of constrained codes for commercial recording systems'' ( USA, 1998) * AES 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal awarded by the Audio Engineering Society ( USA, 1998) * Member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

(

, 1996) * Fellow of the

( USA, 1996) *

IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award The IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award is a Technical Field Award of the IEEE given for outstanding contributions to consumer electronics technology. It is named in honor of Masaru Ibuka, co-founder and honorary chairman of Sony Corpor ...

''for pioneering contributions to consumer digital audio and video recording products'' ( USA, 1996) *

Alexander M. Poniatoff Alexander Matveevich Poniatoff (russian: Александр Матвеевич Понятов, tr. ''Aleksándr Matvéjevič Ponjatóv''; 25 March 1892 – 24 October 1980) was an American electrical engineer. Poniatoff was born in 1892 in Russkay ...

Gold Medal Award for Technical Excellence awarded by the

, ''for outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques and/or equipment that have contributed to the advancement of audio or video magnetic recording and reproduction'' ( USA, 1994) * Sir J.J. Thomson Medal awarded by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), 1993, ''for distinguished contributions to electronics.'' * Fellow of the

Institution of Electrical Engineers The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) was a British professional organisation of electronics, electrical, manufacturing, and Information Technology professionals, especially electrical engineers. It began in 1871 as the Society of T ...

(FIEE) (

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, 1993) *

Chartered Engineer Regulation and licensure in engineering is established by various jurisdictions of the world to encourage life, public welfare, safety, well-being, then environment and other interests of the general public and to define the licensure process thr ...

(CEng) (

, 1993) * AES Silver Medal awarded by the

, ''for major contributions to the development of digital audio recording systems'' (1992, USA) * Fellow of the

(1992, USA) * Fellow of the

, ''for contributions to optical laser recording and compact disc digital audio systems'' ( USA) His papers have received several awards: * 2009 Chester Sall Award for ‘’DC-free Multimode Code Design Using Novel Selection Criteria for Optical Recording Systems,’’ IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (Co-recipient with Jun Lee). * 2008 Best Paper Award for ‘’A general construction of constrained parity-check codes for optical recording,’’ 2008

IEEE Communications Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, Data Storage Technical Committee in Signal Processing and Coding for Data Storage (Co-recipient with Kui Cai) ).

Selected literature

*Codes for mass data storage systems, Shannon Foundation Publishers, 2004 (three editions) *Efficient balanced and maximum homopolymer-run restricted block codes for DNA-based data storage, IEEE Commun. Letters, 2019 (with Kui Cai) ) *Very efficient balanced codes, IEEE Journal Sel. Areas on Communications, 2010 (with Jos Weber). *How we made the compact disc, Nature, 2018. *Minimum Pearson Distance Detection for Multilevel Channels With Gain and/or Offset Mismatch, IEEE Trans. Information Theory, 2014 (with Jos Weber). *A Survey of Coding Techniques for Optical Disc Recording, IEEE Journal Sel. Areas on Communications, 2001) *Codes for Digital Recorders, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, 1998 (with Paul Siegel and Jack Wolf) * Runlength-Limited Sequences, Proceedings IEEE, 1990) *The Digital Versatile Disc ( DVD): System Requirements and Channel Coding,

SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

Journal, 1996. *Experiments Toward an Erasable

, (with J. Braat), J. Audio Eng. Soc., 1984.

KHMW Schouhamer Immink Prijs

The Royal Holland Society of Arts and Sciences established the established the Kees Schouhamer Immink Prize in 2019 as a means to encourage research on information science and telecommunications, two basic pillars of our information society. The prize, consisting of an honorarium and a diploma, is bestowed in recognition of a distinguished PhD thesis defended in the Netherlands.

References

Sources

* ''Codes for Mass Data Storage Systems, Second fully revised edition'', Shannon Foundation Publishers, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Nov. 2004.

* ''The Compact Disc Story'', AES Journal, pp. 458–465, May 199

*''The future of digital audio recording'', AES Journal., pp. 171–172, 199

* , EFM Patent, base code applied in

CD-R CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) are readable by most CD readers manufactured prior to the i ...

* , EFMPlus Patent, base code applied in DVD,

DVD-RW DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. Both terms describe DVD optical discs that can be written to by a DVD recorder, whereas only 'rewritable' discs are able to erase and rewrite data. Data is written ('bur ...

SACD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows multiple au ...

External links

Official website

IEEE Legacies

Winners SMPTE Progress Medal

Videos

IEEE Interview with Kees Immink winner of the 2017 IEEE Medal of Honor, Part 1 (5.46 min), Nov. 2017

IEEE Interview with Kees Immink, Part 2. (3 min), Nov. 2017.

IEEE Honors Ceremony, (10 min), May 2017

IEEE Medal of Honor, Kees Immink: The Birth of Digital Media, IEEE, (4 min), May, 2017

Faraday Medal, IET, (2.3 min), Nov. 2015

Alice Baxter interviews inventor Kornelis A. Schouhamer Immink, 11/06/15, BBC (3 mins), June 2015

* ttp://www.aes.org/historical/store/oralhistory/?code=ohp-016-DVD AES Oral History Project: Kees A.Schouhamer Immink, 2001
IEEE Honors Ceremony, Edison Medal, June 1999
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schouhamer Immink, Kees A. 1946 births 20th-century Dutch engineers 21st-century Dutch engineers Dutch electrical engineers 20th-century Dutch inventors Eindhoven University of Technology alumni Emmy Award winners Fellow Members of the IEEE IEEE Edison Medal recipients IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau Living people Members of the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Engineering Engineers from Rotterdam