Our Experts

Benjamin Bross received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, in 2008. In 2009, he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications – Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, Germany, where he is currently heading the Video Coding Systems group at the Video Coding & Analytics Department and in 2011, he became a part-time lecturer at the HTW University of Applied Sciences Berlin.

Since 2010, Benjamin is very actively involved in the ITU-T VCEG | ISO/IEC MPEG video coding standardization processes as a technical contributor, coordinator of core experiments and chief editor of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard [ITU-T H.265 | ISO/IEC 23008-2] and the emerging Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard. In addition to his involvement in standardization, Benjamin is coordinating standard-compliant software implementation activities. This includes the development of an HEVC encoder that is currently deployed in broadcast for HD and UHD TV channels.

Benjamin Bross is an author or co-author of several fundamental HEVC and VVC-related publications, and an author of two book chapters on HEVC and Inter-Picture Prediction Techniques in HEVC. He received the IEEE Best Paper Award at the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics – Berlin in 2013, the SMPTE Journal Certificate of Merit in 2014 and an Emmy Award at the 69th Engineering Emmy Awards in 2017 as part of the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding for its development of HEVC.

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Philipp Eibl is a research engineer for Fraunhofer IIS, specializing in Next Generation Audio and the development of NGA production tools in particular. Together with his colleagues, he mixes content for interactive and immersive experiences and advises industry partners on how they can integrate object-based audio production into their workflows.

Philipp joined Fraunhofer after studying Multimedia Art as well as Media Technology and Production in Salzburg and Amberg and interning in music and broadcast production. His years of employment in radio broadcast at the Bayerischer Rundfunk gave him first-hand experience and knowledge of the day-to-day work in both production and live broadcast environments at one of Germany’s largest radio stations.

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Siegfried Foessel is head of the department Moving Picture Technologies at Fraunhofer IIS, Germany, and head of the technology study program at the HFF film school in Munich. His previous research projects include: development of digital cinema cameras like ARRI D20/D21, certification test plan for DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives), standardisation of digital cinema profiles for JPEG2000 and development of post-production tools for digital cinema (easyDCP) and immersive audio (MPEG-H). He is member of the International Standardization Committee ISO/IEC JTC1 SC29 WG1, better known as the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)His current projects are JPEG Pleno and JPEG XS. Siegfried is SMPTE fellow and IEEE senior member with more than 70 publications. For FKTG (Fernseh-und Kinotechnische Gesellschaft), the German equivalent to SMPTE, he serves currently as president.

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Cornelius Hellge is heading the Multimedia Communications Group at Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute since 2015. He received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in Media Technology from the Ilmenau University of Technology in 2006 and the Dr.-Ing. degree with distinction (summa cum laude) from the Berlin University of Technology in 2013.  
In 2014 he was Visiting Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Network Coding and Reliable Communications Group of Prof. Medard.  
He is responsible for various scientific as well as industry-funded projects. Together with his team, he is regularly contributing to 3GPP (RAN1, RAN2, SA4), MPEG, IETF, JCT-VC and JVET.  
He has authored more than 60 journal and conference papers, predominantly in the area of video communication and mobile networks, he received the best paper award from the IEEE ICCE’14 conference and he holds more than 40 internationally issued patents and patent applications in these fields.  
His current research interest is in development of new formats for volumetric video for mixed reality, system integration of the new video codec VVC, and the further evolution of the 5G standard.

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Thomas Koch started working as freelance media engineer in 2004. Specialized in the use of immersive audio technologies, he since designed and realized a multitude of media installations for institutions as well as renowned media Artists. After finishing his Bachelor Degree in Audio Engineering in 2007, he took part in the development of industrial applications for immersive audio technlogies such as Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) at Fraunhofer IDMT. From 2008 to 2010, he accompanied the commercial launch of IDMT's WFS-Technology 'IOSONO' as certified system technician and by giving workshops for media artists and customers. In parallel, he developed prototypical applications for pre-market media technologies at Fraunhofer's Information and Communication Technology Group. Alongside the technological engagement with state of the art media technologies, he also investigated their possible artistic and creative uses during his Master's Degree in Sound Studies at the University of Arts, Berlin. In 2010, Thomas Koch joined Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute to investigate new uses of 3D-Audio technologies in the context of highly immersive video environments. His work is mainly focused on the development of tools needed to cover the full production chain, developing and implementing customized microphone setups, post-production tools and delivery / reproduction formats like Wave Field Synthesis / object based rendering for large scale audiovisual environments or binaural audio for VR and AR applications. The developed tools and methods for true-to-live capturing and reproduction are used for projects with renowned cultural entities like the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' or the Radiochoir Berlin, as well as for industrial applications, e.g. the realistic reproduction of railway noise and noise abatement methods, realized for Deutsche Bahn AG.

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Hanna Lukashevich is head of the Semantic Music Technologies group at Fraunhofer IDMT in Ilmenau, Germany. The group develops methods and software solutions for robust, AI-based detection and analysis of music and audio data, which are used in broadcasting and music production as well as for acoustic monitoring of environmental sounds such as urban noise or animal sounds.

Hanna received her master’s degree from the Belarusian State University (Minsk, Belarus) with a specialization in Statistical Radio Physics. In 2006 she joined the Fraunhofer IDMT. Among her research interests are music information retrieval, statistical pattern recognition, and machine learning. She manages several R&D projects, both for companies in the digital media sector as well as national and international public projects.

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Jean-Claude Rosenthal is a Research Associate at the Capture & Display Systems Group in the Vision & Imaging Technologies Department.His R&D activities are related to the following keywords:  deep learning, 2D/3D scene analysis, feature extraction and matching algorithms, camera calibration techniques, realtime applications, embedded platforms, augmented/mixed reality for medical applications, high-precision medicine, computer-assisted-surgery, surgical training.

Jean-Claude Rosenthal graduated in Computer Science mit Schwerpunkt Visual Computing at the University of Koblenz-Landau in 2006. He wrote his diploma thesis about stereo-camera based pose estimation methods for autonomous robots at the DLR/German Aerospace Center in Berlin.

From 2007-2010 he was working in the field of industrial close range photogrammetry as a software developer in the research and development department. In 2010 he joined the Fraunhofer HHI as a research associate. He is a working member of the Capture & Display Systems group at the Vision & Imaging Technology department. Since 2018 he is leading the BMBF research projects COMPASS and MultiARC (in collaboration with VIT-CVG). Previously, he was responsible for the BMWi projects 3DInMed (2015 – 2017) and ASP (2012 – 2014). His current research interests are new AI-based deep learning methods for feature extraction and matching algorithms, camera calibration techniques targeting 3D applications for embedded platforms and augmented/mixed reality in the context of computer-assisted surgery as well as surgical training and education.

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Yago Sanchez received his MSc.-Ing. degree in telecommunications engineering from Tecnun-Universidad de Navarra, Spain, in September 2009. From 2009 to 2019 he worked as a researcher in the Image Communication Group of Prof. Thomas Wiegand at the Technische Universität Berlin and was a guest researcher at Fraunhofer HHI. He is currently working as a researcher at the Video Communication and Applications Department of Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany. In 2013, he was visiting the End2End Mobile Video Research group of Alcatel Lucent-Bell Labs, USA, where he was doing research on mobile video delivery optimization for low-delay HTTP streaming. In addition, he is the co-author of IETF RFC 7798, the IETF RTP Payload Format for H.266/VVC Video. His research interests include adaptive streaming services for IPTV and OTT services, adaptive streaming services for Mobile TV over LTE networks and Virtual Reality 360° video. He has been an active participant in standardization activities in IETF, JCT-VC, JVET, MPEG and 3GPP.

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Robert Skupin received his Dipl.-Ing. (FH) degree in electrical engineering from H-BRS in St. Augustin, Germany in 2009 and his M.S. degree in computer engineering from Technische Universität Berlin, Germany in 2014. He has been with the Multimedia Communications Group in the Video Communication and Applications Department of the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany since 2009.  
His research interests lie in the area of efficient coding, storage and transport of traditional video data as well as emerging formats in AR/VR. He co-authored many publications in this area and contributed roughly 200 related standardisation documents to H.265/HEVC, its scalable extensions and, recently, H.266/VVC as well as related system standards such as the ISO Base Media File Format, MPEG-2 Transport Stream and the Omnidirectional MediA Format. He also contributed to various scientific and industry-funded research projects such as SVConS and COAST in the EU FP7 program and the German BMBF project CODEPAN.

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Dr. Heiko Sparenberg is Head of the Group Digital Cinema and Post Production Technologies at Fraunhofer IIS. The easyDCP software suite for the generation and validation of Digital Cinema Packages is a product that is used worldwide by post-production houses and studios. He is one of the Fraunhofer IIS experts on IMF. For the development of easyDCP and for his work in the area digital cinema he was awarded the Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Prize in 2014. His team is also working on MPEG-H production tools.

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Matteo Torcoli is a senior R&D engineer for the Audio and Media Technologies division at Fraunhofer IIS. He received his B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from Brescia University in 2011 and his M.Sc. in Sound and Music Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2014, with highest honors, with a thesis on dereverberation for hearing aids written during an internship at the International Audio Laboratories Erlangen. His current focus is on audio signal processing and deep learning for developing more accessible and inclusive broadcasting and streaming services. He has been working on dialogue level personalization, on ways to enable it via source separation, and on the subjective and objective evaluation of the resulting user experience.

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