Tomonori Aoyama
Biography
The trailblazing work of Tomonori Aoyama and Takashi Hayasaka accelerated the replacement of 100-year-old analog film technologies used in cinema and television by providing extremely high visual quality using digital-imaging solutions. Their efforts to develop, demonstrate, and commercialize 4K digital motion picture technology helped achieve high-quality digital cinema decades earlier than many thought possible. Aoyama's research in super-high-definition imaging and underlying parallel digital signal processor technologies led to the first 4K digital motion picture prototype system. He also founded the Digital Cinema Consortium of Japan (DCCJ) to promote the development of essential components for implementing 4K digital cinema. DCCJ demonstrated the 4K SHD moving image in Hollywood as well as London, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo to prove the quality of 4K image. Hayasaka played a key role in establishing a cross-functional team at Sony to develop commercial 4K projectors based on Sony’s SXRD technology. He demonstrated the first prototype SXRD projector that satisfied industry’s requirements for 4K digital cinema, providing Hollywood studios with confidence that 4K was a viable format backed by a major manufacturer. The duo’s efforts ensured that when modern digital cinema was standardized, it fully supported the 4K format.
An IEEE Life Fellow, Aoyama is a Professor Emeritus with the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
