Netflix's Chris Fetner to give Keynote Address at SMPTE15 Australia Conference

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Tue, 02/03/2015 - 11:23 -- Nick Dager

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has announced that Chris Fetner, director of global content partners operations at Netflix, will present the opening keynote at the biennial SMPTE Australia Conference & Exhibition July 14-17 at the Entertainment Precinct at Moore Park in Sydney. This year's theme is Persistence of Vision — Defining the Future.

"Chris delivered the opening keynote at the SMPTE 2014 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition in Hollywood to a standing-room-only crowd and earned rave reviews, and we expect no less at the SMPTE15 in Australia," said Pat Griffis, SMPTE education vice president and executive director of technology strategy in the office of the CTO at Dolby Laboratories. "With its expansion into new markets over the past several years, Netflix has become an industry disrupter on an international scale. Chris is positioned to shed light on the company's international activities, as well as the factors shaping the company's technology decision-making."

Fetner, a SMPTE member, began his career as an operations manager at a local Public Broadcasting Systems affiliate in Washington, D.C., and went on to serve as a producer for television programs including the award-winning show Frontiers of Medicine. He later served as a postproduction and operations executive at Discovery Communications, guiding the company's migration to an all-digital workflow, and as vice president of postproduction and technical services at the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Worldwide in New York, where he oversaw all technical operations supporting both the cable network BBC America and its distribution to electronic sell-through (EST), video-on-demand (VOD), and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) customers. At Netflix, Fetner and his team deploy tools, processes, and knowledge that allow content owners and service vendors to deliver high quality content to Netflix simply and with efficiency. 

Further information about SMPTE15, including details on submitting a paper proposal, is available at www.smpte.org.au. The deadline for proposal submissions is 15 February. More information about SMPTE is available at www.smpte.org.